In Turin (Italy), the welding of the structure of the residential and logistics module (HALO, Habitation and Logistics Outpost) of the future Lunar Gateway lunar station continues. Thales Alenia Space, which builds the module, posted a photo of the HALO hull on Twitter. Also, several photos with elements of the module were published by the official account of the Gateway program on Twitter.
The international manned near-lunar station Gateway should become for the crew an intermediate point on the way to the Moon and, in the future, to Mars. Also, thanks to the station, it is planned to conduct research on the moon and its surface, analyze lunar soil. According to the plan, the station will not be permanently inhabited, since at such a distance the crew will not be protected from cosmic radiation by the Earth's magnetic field. In mid-August this year, NASA released a video of Gateway deployment renders.
And on October 3, the Gateway project publishes two photos with HALO elements, after welding of which the module will go to the USA for revision. It was also partially presented at the booth during the International Astronautical Congress 2022 conference, held in September this year.
On October 19, a photo of the layout of the I-Hab (International Habitation Module) Gateway residential module appeared on Twitter, against which part of the team working on the project was photographed.
On October 24, Thales Alenia Space published an already partially welded HALO.
According to a video published in August, Maxar Technologies' Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) will first arrive at the assembly site at the NRHO (Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit, close to the Moon's rectilinear halo orbit). At NRHO, the I-Hab (International Habitation Module) residential module of the European Space Agency (ESA) with the first crew on board docks with it. After that, a logistics module arrives in orbit for docking, carrying with it the robotic systems of the Canadian Space Agency, such as the Canadarm-3 manipulator. The logistics module is a cargo spacecraft for replenishing supplies at the station, similar to the Russian Progress.
Next, SpaceX will send the Human Landing System (HLS) to the station to land on the moon and take off from it, as well as deliver the necessary equipment to the Earth’s satellite. After that, the ESPRIT-RM module (European System Providing Refueling, Infrastructure, and Telecommunications Refueler Module) and the Nanoracks Bishop Airlock gateway module arrive at the station. In parallel with this, missions are being sent to the Orion station, Crew Dragon and logistics modules with a crew and the necessary equipment and supplies, as well as several HLS landings on the moon with a return to the station.
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