NASA Firms Up International Collaboration on Deep Space Missions

Both the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and European Space Agency (ESA) have recently committed to participate in NASA'S crewed deep space exploration plans.On 16 December 2020, NASA and CSA inked a pact initiating collaboration on the Gateway,a small space station in lunar orbit that will facilitate sustainable human lunar and Mars exploration.The agreement enlists Canada to provide the Canadarm3 external robotics system for the Gateway, and commits NASA to provide crew opportunities for Canadian astronauts on an Artemis mission to Gateway and on Artemis II, the first crewed mission on the Orion spacecraft that will take astronauts to a high lunar orbit, farther from Earth than ever before, in 2023.* Said Kathy Lueders, NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations: Gateway will enable a robust, sustainable, and eventually permanent human presence on the lunar surface where we can prove out many of the skills, operations, and technologies that will be key for future human Mars missions.* Gateway will be one sixth the size of ISS and at a maximum distance of tens of thousands of miles from the Moon in a near-rectilinear halo orbit.NASA and International and commercial partners will conduct unprecedented deep space science and technology investigations on the station.Gateway will be a rendezvous point for astronauts traveling to low-lunar orbit and descending to the Moon on a commercially-developed lander.* According to Dan Hartman, Gateway Program Manager at NASA Johnson Space Center,Houston: Our efforts are well underway on Gateway to integrate CSA's robotics system with arm attachment points and smaller dexterous adapters already being incorporated into the individual Gateway modules including the PPE (Power and Propulsion Element),HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost), Gateway logistics, and international habitation element designs.* In October, NASA enlisted ESA contributions to provide the PPE and HALO modules to Gateway,as well as enhanced lunar communications and the European Service Modules for Orion.ESA will also provide a scientific investgation onboard Gateway,the European Radiation Sensors Array (ERSA), for monitoring space radiation at high energies for astronaut protection.NASA will provide a heliophysics investigation called HERMES (Heliophysics Environmental and Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite).*