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Although the Gateway\u2019s role with the first lunar landing \u2013 set for 2024 \u2013 is currently having its timeline re-evaluated to a schedule that won\u2019t see it involved with the 2024 mission, NASA has again reaffirmed its commitment to the outpost, which was further solidified with the announcement of a GLS contract on Friday.<\/p>\n
While SpaceX has a long history of launch resupply missions to the International Space Station, first with the Cargo Dragon and soon with its Dragon 2\/Cargo version of it Crew Dragon, the GLS contract has revealed a new variant of the spacecraft.<\/p>\n
Named the Dragon XL, this large cargo vehicle \u2013 which looks more like a large Cygnus XL vehicle than a traditional Dragon design \u2013 will be launched by SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy rocket. SpaceX notes that the vehicle will be optimized to carry more than five metric tons of cargo to Gateway in lunar orbit.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/NSF-2020-03-27-18-54-28-868.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSpaceX render of its Dragon XL vehicle<\/p>\n
\u201cReturning to the Moon and supporting future space exploration requires affordable delivery of significant amounts of cargo,\u201d said SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell. \u201cThrough our partnership with NASA, SpaceX has been delivering scientific research and critical supplies to the International Space Station since 2012, and we are honored to continue the work beyond Earth\u2019s orbit and carry Artemis cargo to Gateway.\u201d<\/p>\n
Akin to Dragon missions to the ISS, Dragon XL will deliver critical pressurized and unpressurized cargo, science experiments and supplies to the Gateway. However, per the mission brief of missions to the Moon, its cargo will also include sample collection materials and other items the crew may need on the Gateway and during their expeditions on the lunar surface.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an exciting new chapter for human exploration,\u201d added Mark Wiese, Deep Space Logistics manager at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. \u201cWe are bringing the innovative thinking of commercial industry into our supply chain and helping ensure we\u2019re able to support crews preparing for lunar surface expeditions by delivering the supplies they need ahead of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike their ISS colleagues, the GLS cargo spacecraft will aim to stay at the Gateway for a long duration mission of six to 12 months at a time.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/NSF-2020-03-27-19-06-53-795.jpg\")
<\/p>\nDragon 2, Starliner and Cargo Dream Chaser all docked to the ISS \u2013 via Nathan Koga for NSF\/L2<\/p>\n
The primary form of crew transportation remains with the Orion spacecraft, which will be launched on NASA\u2019s Space Launch System (SLS).<\/p>\n
Although SpaceX is the first company to receive a GLS contract award, more companies are bidding to provide what will be a fleet of resupply vehicles to the Gateway, an important requirement to allow for dissimilar redundancy \u2013 an important lesson learned during the challenge of keeping the ISS supplied.<\/p>\n
NASA notes these firm-fixed price, indefinite delivery\/indefinite quantity contracts for logistics services guarantee two missions per logistics services provider with a maximum total value of $7 billion across all contracts as additional missions are needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis contract award is another critical piece of our plan to return to the Moon sustainably,\u201d said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. \u201cThe Gateway is the cornerstone of the long-term Artemis architecture and this deep space commercial cargo capability integrates yet another American industry partner into our plans for human exploration at the Moon in preparation for a future mission to Mars.\u201d<\/p>\n
The birth of the Gateway will see start with the construction of two of the station\u2019s mission-essential modules \u2013 the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) \u2013 have been contracted to Maxar Technologies and Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, respectively.<\/p>\n
Both modules are expected to launch on commercially-procured launch vehicles, ironically with SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy understood to be leading the way in during these evaluations.<\/p>\n
Like the ISS, the Gateway will be an international effort with numerous agencies. All of the agencies involved with adding elements to the outpost have ISS partner experience.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/4519DA52-9E20-4E0F-8859-5A211AED9B7B-scaled.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nIllustration of future Lunar Gateway layout, showing international contributions \u2013 credit: NASA<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re making significant progress moving from our concept of the Gateway to reality,\u201d said Dan Hartman, Gateway program manager at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston.<\/p>\n
\u201cBringing a logistics provider onboard ensures we can transport all the critical supplies we need for the Gateway and on the lunar surface to do research and technology demonstrations in space that we can\u2019t do anywhere else. We also anticipate performing a variety of research on and within the logistics module.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NASA has awarded SpaceX with a resupply contract for the Lunar Gateway. Built on the foundations of the successful agreement to resupply the ISS, SpaceX will employ its Falcon Heavy rocket to launch a new spacecraft called the Dragon XL to the lunar outpost under a Gateway Logistics Services (GLS) contract. NASA\u2019s Lunar Gateway is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37673,"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":[2304,1395,419,8913,316],"class_list":["post-37672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-crs","tag-dragon","tag-gateway","tag-gls","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37672"}],"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=37672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}