Author Topic: Cislunar station gets thumbs up, new name in President’s budget request  (Read 1006 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Online Elderberry

  • TBR Contributor
  • *****
  • Posts: 24,281
NASA Spaceflight.com by Philip Sloss March 16, 2018

The Trump Administration is proposing to formally start a cislunar space station program and begin assembly early in the next decade with launch of the first element.  The Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) is the core module of the station, now named the “Lunar Orbital Platform – Gateway” (LOP-G).

As a part of commercial space industry initiatives for human exploration, the Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 NASA budget request submitted by the President to Congress in February also proposed an accelerated, dedicated commercial launch of the PPE in 2022.

The PPE was previously scheduled to launch as a secondary payload on Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2), which is currently planned to be the first crewed Orion spacecraft mission launch on NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.  With the PPE no longer on the EM-2 manifest, NASA is evaluating changes to that mission, including aspirations of flying the Habitation module on a more ambitious flight for Orion’s first crew.

Administration green light for “Lunar Orbital Platform – Gateway”

Formerly known as the Deep Space Gateway (DSG), the NASA FY 2019 budget request submitted to Congress in February proposes a formal start to the Lunar Orbital Platform – Gateway program. “While some aspects of the LOP-G program, such as PPE, had been previously funded in Advanced Exploration Systems (AES), this is a new funding line established in the FY 2019 Budget,” the budget submission notes.

The administration is requesting LOP-G funding of US $504.2 million in FY 2019, along with a projected “out-year” funding profile of $662.2 million in FY 2020, $540 million in FY 2021, $558.9 million in FY 2022, and $459.1 million in FY 2023. New government programs like LOP-G need to be approved by both the President and Congress, but negotiations on funding and especially amounts of funding are usually slow and contentious.

More: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/03/cislunar-station-new-name-presidents-budget/

Offline kevindavis007

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12,380
  • Gender: Male
I like the idea. Also with these Deep Space Gateways, maybe they can work on things like Artificial Gravity.  However, I do see them as a way to help us travel interstellar.
Join The Reagan Caucus: https://reagancaucus.org/

Offline Joe Wooten

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,455
  • Gender: Male
It will need some serious radiation protection scheme.....

Offline Suppressed

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12,921
  • Gender: Male
    • Avatar
If they were going to change the name, they should have gone with Mass Effect Relay!

+++++++++
“In the outside world, I'm a simple geologist. But in here .... I am Falcor, Defender of the Alliance” --Randy Marsh

“The most effectual means of being secure against pain is to retire within ourselves, and to suffice for our own happiness.” -- Thomas Jefferson

“He's so dumb he thinks a Mexican border pays rent.” --Foghorn Leghorn