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    Home»Space»NASA’s Lunar Gateway: Energizing Exploration With Powerful Solar Electric Propulsion
    Space

    NASA’s Lunar Gateway: Energizing Exploration With Powerful Solar Electric Propulsion

    By NASAAugust 29, 20241 Comment3 Mins Read
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    Gateway Initial Configuration
    Artist’s rendering of Gateway in its initial configuration, featuring the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) connected to the Power and Propulsion Element. Credit: NASA

    Discover the cutting-edge technology powering Gateway, humanity’s first lunar space station.

    Gateway, soon to be the most powerful solar electric spacecraft, features innovative solar arrays and propulsion technology. This module supports critical Artemis missions and enhances deep space communication, setting the stage for extended human activity around the Moon.

    Technicians work diligently to assemble a key power element of Gateway, the lunar space station that will become the most powerful solar electric spacecraft ever flown.

    Two Engineers Work on the Power and Propulsion Element at Maxar Space Systems
    Two engineers in cleanroom suits work on the Power and Propulsion Element at Maxar Space Systems in Palo Alto, California. Credit: Maxar Space Systems

    Advancements in Solar Technology and Propulsion

    Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element will use the largest roll-out solar arrays ever built – together about the size of an American football field endzone – to harness the Sun’s energy for deep space exploration. The module is built by Maxar Space Systems in Palo Alto, California, and managed at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. That includes energizing xenon gas to produce the thrust needed to send Gateway from Earth to lunar orbit and keep it there for the Artemis IV, V, and VI missions. On those missions and beyond, international teams of astronauts will expand Gateway with additional living and working space, and will journey to the lunar South Pole region from Gateway.

    Advanced Electric Propulsion System Thruster NASA Gateway
    A type of advanced electric propulsion system thruster that will be used on Gateway glows blue as it emits ionized xenon gas during testing at NASA’s Glenn Research Center. Credit: NASA

    Enhancing Deep Space Communication and Exploration

    The Power and Propulsion Element will power Gateway’s subsystems and enable telecommunications between the lunar surface, the space station, Earth, and back again. Building on technology advancements from past successful electric propulsion missions like Psyche and DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), the module will help NASA expand the boundaries of what’s possible in deep space.

    Gateway Space Station Full Configuration
    An artist’s rendering of the Gateway space station, which will be humanity’s first space station around the Moon as a vital component of the Artemis missions to return humans to the lunar surface for scientific discovery and chart the path for the first human missions to Mars. Credit: NASA, Alberto Bertolin, Bradley Reynolds

    Expanding Human Presence in Deep Space

    NASA and its international partners will explore the scientific mysteries of deep space with Gateway, humanity’s first space station around the Moon. The international teams of astronauts living and conducting science on Gateway will be the first humans to make their home in deep space.

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    ARTEMIS Mission Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway NASA
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    1 Comment

    1. Bao-hua ZHANG on August 29, 2024 5:31 pm

      NASA’s Lunar Gateway: Energizing Exploration With Powerful Solar Electric Propulsion.
      Very good.

      Space has physical properties of zero viscosity and absolute incompressibility. Zero viscosity and absolute incompressibility are physical characteristics of ideal fluids. The space with ideal fluid physical characteristics forms vortices via topological phase transitions, which is not difficult to understand mathematically. Once the topological vortex is formed, it occupies space and maintains its presence in time. This is the transition from chaos to order via two bidirectional coupled continuous chaotic systems.

      From cosmic accretion disks to particle spins, topological vortex fractal structures are ubiquitous. Symmetry of topological vortex can be used to explore particle behavior under spatial, temporal, and quantum reversals, involving gravitation, discrete and continuous changes. It underpins the consistency of natural laws and experiment reproducibility.

      Scientific research guided by correct theories can help humanity avoid detours, failures, and pomposity. Please witness the exemplary collaboration between theoretical physicists and experimentalists (https://scitechdaily.com/microscope-spacecrafts-most-precise-test-of-key-component-of-the-theory-of-general-relativity/#comment-854286). Some people in contemporary physics has always lived in a self righteous children’s story world. Whose values have been overturned by such a comical and ridiculous reality?

      From Physical Review Letters (PRL), to Nature, and Science, even the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the so-called academic journals firmly believe that two high-dimensional spacetime objects (such as two sets of cobalt-60) rotating in opposite directions can be transformed into two objects that mirror each other, and that the asymmetry between the amount of created matter and antimatter led to the matter-dominated Universe as we know it today.

      Does the facts tell the so-called academic journals that two sets of cobalt-60 rotating in opposite directions can be transformed into two objects that mirror each other? Does mathematics tell the so-called academic journals that matter and antimatter are asymmetric? When physics no longer believes in facts and mathematics, it is no different from theology.

      Naked walkers never consider themselves ugly, but rather consider themselves cool.

      The physical phenomena observed in scientific experiments are always just appearances, not the natural essence of things. The natural essence of things needs to be extracted and sublimated based on natural phenomena via mathematical theories. Mathematics is the main environment for modeling problems in other areas. Observations and experiments, theory, and modeling reinforce each other and together lead to our understanding of physical phenomena. After understanding and mastering the natural essence of things, humans can predict more possible natural phenomena, and even manipulate and implement them.

      Reply
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