NASA First Segment of the Lunar Space Station Announced

NASA has officially announced its first commercial partner for a space station and named it Lunar Gateway. This Lunar gateway will be built near the moon. Recently, the NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said that MAXAR technologies will build the first component of the Lunar Gateway and this serves as the power and propulsion element. As the name tells, this will provide electricity to the Lunar Gateway.

In the announcement, he also said that this time when going to Moon they are going to stay. This gateway will be positioned in a high elliptical orbit that can balance the Earth's and Moon's gravity. NASA's current plan is to land people in the year 2024. The NASA administrator will provide an hour-long overview of the NASA's ambitions Moon plans at the Florida Institute of Technology. The announcement also made it clear that the lunar explorations will continue as planned in the Obama administration.

The Obama space plan involved using the Gateway as the first step towards Mars. The debate grew in the aerospace community about this gateway that will add delta-v energy needed to reach the lunar surface. The whole contract that was announced on Thursday worth 375 million dollars. The Maxar company shared to the media that the company would choose a commercial rocket for the power and propulsion element in coming 12 to 18 months. NASA may even expand the Gateway with the other modules with the help of the International Players.