To return to the Moon by 2024, NASA will rely upon a lunar-orbit docking station known as the Gateway.

The Lunar Gateway will act as a kind of Command and Service Module to support human landings to the Moon’s surface.

But how will we get to the Gateway exactly?

In a live Tech Briefs Q&A titled The Next Giant Leap: Back to the Moon and On to Mars, a reader had the following question for Rob Chambers, Director of Human Spaceflight Strategy and Business Development for NASA contractor Lockheed Martin Space Systems:

“What Type of Space Shuttle are you going to use for the Moon mission in 2024? And have you already made it?”

Read the edited response below from Chambers, who has an avionics and software background, and currently works on the spacecraft that is set to send astronauts to the Lunar Gateway.

Rob Chambers: “The space shuttle did, of course, get retired a few years ago. The focus now is using the Orion spacecraft  as the shuttle (note the lowercase “s”), to shuttle humans back and forth from the Earth all the way out to the Moon.

It’s unlike the act of going up to the International Space Station and back, simply because of the redundancy and the propulsion systems that we need, as well as the life support.

The Orion spacecraft will fly next year for its first uncrewed flight, and then will begin carrying humans to the vicinity of the moon on Artemis 2  . Orion will be the transportation system. It’s the world’s only 'exploration-class' spacecraft that’s ever been built.”

In July of 2019, NASA successfully demonstrated the launch abort system of Orion  . The test spacecraft traveled to an altitude of about six miles, experienced the expected high-stress aerodynamic conditions of ascent, and triggered its abort motor, pulling the crew module away from the rocket.

Orion's attitude control motor properly oriented the capsule end-over-end. The jettison motor then fired, releasing the crew module for splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.

Artemis 1  , planned for 2020, will be Orion’s first flight on NASA’s powerful new rocket known as the Space Launch System (SLS)  . Artemis 2, the first crewed SLS and Orion flight, is targeted for a trip around the Moon in 2022.

NASA aims to complete Artemis 3  , a rendezvous with the Gateway and landing on the Moon, by 2024.

For more information about the Orion spacecraft, the Lunar Gateway, and the Artemis missions, watch our Webinar on-demand: The Next Giant Leap: Back to the Moon and On to Mars.

Topics:
Aeronautics Aerospace Propulsion

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    Transcript

    00:00:02 - [Narrator] 50 years ago we pioneered a path to the moon. The trail we blazed cut through the fictions of science, and showed us all what was possible. Today our calling to explore is even greater. To go farther, we must be able to sustain missions of greater distance and duration. We must use the resources we find at our destinations, we must overcome radiation, isolation, gravity, and extreme environments like never before. These are the challenges we face

    00:00:38 to push the bounds of humanity. We're going to the moon to stay, by 2024. And this is how. - This all starts with the ability to get larger, heavier payloads off planet, and beyond Earth's gravity. - For this, we designed an entirely new rocket. - The Space Launch System. SLS will be the most powerful rocket ever developed. - [Female] And with components and production - And more in testing,

    00:01:06 - This system is capable of being the catalyst for deep space missions. - [Female] We need a capsule that can support humans from launch, through deep space, and return safely back to earth. - For this, we've built Orion. - This is NASA's next generation human space capsule. - Using data from lunar orbiters that continue to reveal the moon's hazards and resources, we're currently developing an entirely new approach

    00:01:33 to landing and operating on the moon. - Using our commercial partners to deliver science instruments and robotics to the surface, we are paving the way for human missions in 2024. - [Narrator] Our charge is to go quickly, and stay. To press our collective efforts forward, with a fervor that will see us return to the moon in a manner that is wholly different than 50 years ago. - We want lunar lander's that are reusable, that can land anywhere on the lunar surface.

    00:02:03 The simplest way to do so is to give them a platform, in orbit, around the moon, from which to transition. - An orbiting platform to host deep space experiments, and be a way-point for human capsules. We call this lunar outpost, Gateway. - [Female] The beauty of the Gateway is that it can be moved between orbits. - [Male Narrator] It will balance between the earth and moon's gravity, [Female Narrator] In a position that is ideal for launching

    00:02:24 even deeper space missions. - In 2009, we learned that the moon contains millions of tons of water ice. - This ice could be extracted and purified for water, and be separated into oxygen for breathing, or hydrogen for rocket fuel. - The moon is quite uniquely suited to prepare us and propel us to Mars and beyond. - This is what we're building. - This is what we're training for.

    00:02:50 - This we can replicate throughout the solar system. - This is the next chapter of human space exploration. - [Narrator] Humans are the most fragile element of this entire endeavor, and yet we go for humanity. They go to the moon and on to Mars to seek knowledge and understanding, and to share it with all. We go knowing our efforts will create opportunities that cannot be foreseen.

    00:03:13 We go because we are destined to explore and see it with our own eyes. We turn towards the moon now, not as a conclusion, but as preparation. As a checkpoint toward all that lies beyond. Our greatest adventures remain ahead of us. We are going. - We're going. - We are going. [Rocket engine blast]

    00:03:36 - We are going. - We're going.