Here is what you need to know

You have probably heard of the lunar orbit space station that NASA plans to build in the next five years.

This outpost, known as the lunar orbital platform-bridge, will help humanity extend its footprint in deep space and allow for various interesting scientific and commercial activities on and around the moon, officials said. from NASA.

But maybe you are a little vague about the details of the gateway (a shortcut much better than the acronym LOP-G) – what it will look like, for example, or exactly where it will be installed. If so, the following introduction to the basics of this planned space station should help you. [21 Most Marvelous Moon Missions of All Time]

A small outpost

NASA plans to build and visit the bridge using Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion Deep Space Capsule, both under development.

The first element of the 55-ton (50-ton) outpost, its power and propulsion element (PPE), is expected to take off in 2022. Other key elements, such as an arm robotic, a housing module and an airlock, will follow in a relatively short time, if everything goes as planned. The bridge could be ready to host astronauts by the mid-2020s, NASA officials said.

These crewmembers will not have as much space as on the International Space Station (ISS) of 440 tons (400 tons) in Earth orbit. As currently envisioned, the bridge will have at least 1,942 cubic feet (55 cubic meters) of living space, compared to 13,696 cubic feet (388 cubic meters) on the ISS.

The ISS usually hosts six crew members at a time, who perform missions of five to six months each. And these missions overlap; Rotating international teams have held the ISS permanently since November 2000.

The bridge, however, will support a maximum of four crew members at a time, and they will be more or less isolated, living and working at the station for stays of 30 to 90 days. Since NASA astronauts will need expensive (and therefore relatively infrequent) SLS-Orion launchers, the gateway will be uninhabited for most of the year – unless other users wish to take advantage of this outpost.

"It does not necessarily have to be American crew.We try to use interoperability standards for docking, power, avionics." , many other systems, "said John Guidi, deputy director of the Advanced Exploration Systems division. and Direction of operational missions, said in June during a presentation with the working group of the Space Agency on Future Space Operations (FISO).

"The attempt to open the door to other countries, to other companies, is accompanied by an attempt to gain access," Guidi added. "They should bring their own resources.We will not have food, water, etc. for everyone.We only plan our missions.But this is an ability we want to have in this gateway. "

There will be a lot to do for the people of Gateway. They could, for example, operate rovers on the lunar surface with virtually no latency, or perform exits there themselves. And they will probably conduct many scientific experiments at the outpost, as do the ISS crew members. (Meanwhile, doctors and mission planners will carefully monitor how these astronauts mentally and physiologically manage with their environment in deep space.) [Moon Base Visions: How to Build a Lunar Colony (Photos)]

But the outpost will welcome and support research year-round, regardless of the frequency of astronaut visits, NASA officials said. The agency plans to put various scientific equipment inside and outside the mini-station, and many of these devices will collect data autonomously.

A starting point

The footbridge will of course be much farther from the surface of the Earth than the ISS, which is 400 kilometers above our planet.

NASA plans to assemble the catwalk into a highly elliptical "quasi-rectilinear halo orbit", which will bring the outpost to within 1,500 km of the lunar surface at the closest approach. close up and up to 70,000 km. (Remember: the moon is about 238,900 miles or 384,400 km from the Earth on average.)

This six-day orbit will keep the bridge out of the moonlight at all times, allowing for constant communication with the Earth, NASA officials said. And with this orbit, the outpost can serve as a starting point, both for landers who are heading towards the lunar surface and for vehicles that venture into deep space.

"We finally want to go to Mars, and the systems that will take the crew to Mars are going to be pretty big – very big," Guidi said.

To the extent possible, NASA wants to avoid having to carry this heavy equipment out of Earth's gravity, to make the Red Planet's hikes more efficient and more profitable, Guidi added. And the gateway should be able to help with that.

"So we think we can use the SLS-Orion to take us into a discrete space, [in other words, to] go to the bridge, we can move the gateway a little into orbit – and the EPP is able to do that – dock to Mars-type transport-housing systems and send them, "said Guidi. they can "still count on SLS-Orion to make the connection between the lunar environment and the house," he said.

Step by step

The ball is already rolling on the Gateway hardware design. For example, NASA plans to announce the EPP contractor in March.

And five different companies – Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Bigelow Aerospace, Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corp. – should deliver "ground prototypes" of their proposed habitat modules for testing next year. (NASA is also negotiating with a potential sixth homebuilder, NanoRacks, said agency officials.)

If all goes well, NASA astronauts could set foot on the moon before the end of the 2020s, said Guidi. This goal is in line with President Donald Trump's Space Policy Directive 1, which instructs the agency to set up a long-term sustainable outpost on the lunar surface.

This same directive also makes it clear that the emergence of humanity in the solar system should not end at the moon.

"Mars is still important – it's still the long-term goal," Guidi said. "But the short-term attention is more about our neighbor in a discreet space."

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @ michaeldwall and Google+. follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally posted on Space.com.