{"id":17908,"date":"2019-10-21T19:06:07","date_gmt":"2019-10-21T11:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/the-worlds-space-agencies-focus-in-on-their-roles-for-gateway-moon-missions\/"},"modified":"2019-10-21T19:06:07","modified_gmt":"2019-10-21T11:06:07","slug":"the-worlds-space-agencies-focus-in-on-their-roles-for-gateway-moon-missions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/the-worlds-space-agencies-focus-in-on-their-roles-for-gateway-moon-missions\/","title":{"rendered":"The world\u2019s space agencies focus in on their roles for Gateway moon missions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"NASA
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine is surrounded by top officials from other space agencies as he talks about what lies ahead for NASA and its partners on the final frontier. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014 Not everyone has signed on the dotted line to join NASA\u2019s plan to start sending astronauts to the moon in 2024 via an outpost in lunar orbit known as the Gateway, but the world\u2019s leading space agencies are already staking out their roles.<\/p>\n

Russia, for example, plans to work on its own space transportation system that would parallel NASA\u2019s Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule. Europe and Japan are planning to provide logistical support for space operations. And Canada will be supplying the Gateway\u2019s robotic arm.<\/p>\n

Space agency officials laid out the status of their plans for the final frontier today during a panel discussion and follow-up news briefing at the International Astronautical Congress in Washington.<\/p>\n

The top item on the agenda for crewed space exploration is NASA\u2019s Artemis program, which aims to send the first woman and the next man to the moon\u2019s south polar region in 2024. Based on what\u2019s already been said about Artemis, it\u2019s a safe bet that the first two moonwalkers will be American \u2014 but NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said representatives of NASA\u2019s partner space agencies will eventually get their chance as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s lots of room on the moon,\u201d Bridenstine told reporters. \u201cAnd we need all the international partners to go with us to the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the arrangements, presumably including who gets to go in which order, will be determined by the \u201clevels of contribution\u201d to the Artemis space effort, including the Gateway outpost that\u2019s due to be constructed in an eccentric, Earth-facing orbit between now and 2024.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/JimBridenstine\/status\/1186332739328466945<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s space agency was the first to sign onto NASA\u2019s Gateway project, with the complex Canadarm3 robotic arm to serve as its main contribution. Japan followed just last week, and the European Space Agency seems likely to give its thumbs-up during a ministerial meeting to be held next month.<\/p>\n

ESA is already providing the service module for NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft. \u201cWe believe we can contribute to Gateway,\u201d ESA Director General Jan W\u00f6rner said.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s Roscosmos space agency believes it can contribute as well. Roscosmos registered its interest in the Gateway concept a couple of years ago, when it was still being formulated. Today Sergei Krikalev, a former cosmonaut who\u2019s in charge of piloted spaceflight at Roscosmos, said he was sure Russia would follow through on that interest, although \u201cwe don\u2019t have a final decision how, or which way.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it\u2019s likely that Russia will provide launch capabilities that parallel NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft and its yet-to-be-flown SLS rocket, just as Russia\u2019s Soyuz rockets and spacecraft provided redundant capability during NASA\u2019s space shuttle era.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe transportation system is going to be a joint system,\u201d Krikalev told reporters.<\/p>\n

Commercial space ventures in the U.S. and other countries will have roles as well. Bridenstine pointed out that SpaceX and Boeing are already planning to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station beginning next year, and that NASA is in the midst of receiving proposals for commercial lunar landing systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of interest. \u2026 I think you\u2019re going to see a lot of announcements regarding different companies and organizations that are interested in going to the surface of the moon,\u201d Bridenstine said.<\/p>\n

Not everyone is on the Gateway bandwagon yet: S. Somanath, director of India\u2019s Vikram Sarabhai Space Center, noted that his country was still in the early stages of developing a human spaceflight program and isn\u2019t ready to get into the Gateway. \u201cIt\u2019s a question of priorities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

China, which has been left out of the International Space Station program due to U.S. sanctions, is a big question mark. A Chinese space official had been listed as a participant in today\u2019s gathering of space agency officials. But organizers of the event said the official was a no-show due to \u201ctime conflicts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bridenstine stressed that the long-term goal of the Artemis moon program was to prepare the way for missions to Mars.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we accelerate the moon landing, we are accelerating the Mars landing. That\u2019s what we\u2019re doing,\u201d he said. \u201cLook, if our budgets were sufficient, which is going to require a lot of us on this stage to work with our governments, I would suggest that we could do it by 2035.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine is surrounded by top officials from other space agencies as he talks about what lies ahead for NASA and its partners on the final frontier. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle) WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014 Not everyone has signed on the dotted line to join NASA\u2019s plan to start sending astronauts to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[304,880,2702,831,4617,4928,877,625,190,352],"class_list":["post-17908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-artemis","tag-canadian-space-agency","tag-deep-space-gateway","tag-european-space-agency","tag-iac","tag-iac2019","tag-jaxa","tag-moon","tag-nasa","tag-russia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17908"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17908\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}