Japan agrees to space station extension and Gateway contributions

The Japanese government has formally agreed to extend its participation on the International Space Station through 2030 and provide components for the lunar Gateway. In a virtual ceremony Nov. 17, NASA and Japanese government officials signed an agreement outlining the roles that Japan will provide in the Gateway, including components for several modules and a cargo resupply mission. NASA, in turn, will fly a Japanese astronaut to the Gateway on a future Artemis mission. In addition to the Gateway agreement, Japan’s Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Keiko Nagaoka announced that the Japanese government had confirmed its intent to participate on the ISS through 2030, joining the United States in extending ISS operations beyond 2024. “The United States welcomes Japan’s intention to extend its support of International Space Station (ISS) operations through 2030, following the United States’ announcement of our ISS extension one year ago,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement. “In addition, our two countries are taking a step forward by reaching an agreement on collaboration on the Lunar Gateway orbiting platform, which will pave the way for the return of humanity to the Moon.” The new Gateway agreement updates one announced in January 2021. As with the earlier agreement, the Japanese space agency JAXA will provide the life support system, thermal controls, camera and batteries for the International Habitation, or I-Hab, module, being developed in cooperation with the European Space Agency. JAXA will also provide batteries for ESA’s European System Providing Refueling Infrastructure and Telecommunication (ESPRIT) refueling module and NASA’s Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) module.

NASA's Orion spacecraft approaching the lunar Gateway. Japan agreed to provide components for Gateway modules and a cargo resupply flight in exchange for one astronaut mission to the outpost. Credit: NASA/Alberto Bertolin

Japan will develop a version of its HTV-X cargo spacecraft, called HTV-XG, to deliver supplies to the Gateway. NASA said the agreement includes a single mission to the Gateway no later than 2030.

In return, NASA said a JAXA astronaut will be included as part of the crew of a mission to the Gateway, but did not specify when that person would fly. In the January 2021 agreement, NASA only agreed to an “intent” to find flight opportunities for Japanese astronauts that would be finalized and documented in a later agreement.

“Today’s Gateway agreement represents the fulfillment commitments made by the Biden-Harris Administration and solidifies our nations’ collaboration, which will help ensure continued discoveries on Gateway, the International Space Station, and beyond,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in the statement. He signed the agreement on the behalf of the agency from the Kennedy Space Center, while Nagaoka signed the agreement from Tokyo.

NASA previously coordinated agreements with Canada and ESA for their Gateway contributions. Canada, which is providing a robotic arm for the Gateway, will fly an astronaut on the first crewed Orion flight, Artemis 2, along with a later Gateway mission. ESA will have three seats on Artemis missions, likely including the Artemis 4 and 5 missions that will deliver the I-Hab and ESPRIT modules to the Gateway.

While the Gateway agreement covers only a single astronaut flight, Nagaoka said in a MEXT statement that the country will still seeking to land a Japanese astronaut on the moon as the first non-American astronaut “by the latter half of the 2020s.”

NASA said that Japan’s announcement of its extension of ISS operations makes it only the second country, after the United States, to agree to participating on the ISS beyond 2024. Both Canada and ESA have indicated their willing to do so as well. Russia, despite comments this summer that it might leave the ISS partnership after 2024, is likely to remain a part at least until the late 2020s.

Northrop Grumman snags $187 million to design NASA's lunar Gateway habitat for astronauts

NASA has awarded Northrop Grumman $187 million to design the habitat module for the space agency's lunar Gateway, a planned moon-orbiting space station for astronauts. We learned last year that NASA had tapped Virginia-based Northrop Grumman to build Gateway's pressurized crew cabin, called the habitation and logistics outpost (HALO). The company will base HALO on its Cygnus spacecraft, which has been flying contracted robotic cargo missions to the International Space Station for NASA since 2014. On Friday (June 5), the space agency announced some terms of the deal: Northrop Grumman will receive $187 million to fund HALO's design through a key milestone called preliminary design review, which is expected to be complete by the end of this year. "This contract award is another significant milestone in our plan to build robust and sustainable lunar operations," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement. "The Gateway is a key component of NASA’s long-term Artemis architecture, and the HALO capability furthers our plans for human exploration at the moon in preparation for future human missions to Mars." Artemis is NASA's program of crewed lunar exploration, which aims to land two astronauts near the moon's south pole in 2024 and establish a sustainable human presence on and around the cosmic body by 2028. As Bridenstine noted, the agency envisions such work paving the way for the next giant leap: getting astronauts to Mars, which NASA aims to do in the 2030s.

Gateway likely won't be involved in the 2024 landing, but NASA sees the mini space station as crucial to its longer-term lunar plans. The outpost will serve as a jumping-off point for sorties, both crewed and uncrewed, to the lunar surface.

The current plan calls for launching Gateway's first two elements — HALO and the power and propulsion element (PPE), which will be built by Maxar Technologies — together in 2023. NASA expects to award Northrop Grumman a second contract by the end of the year, to build HALO and integrate it with the PPE, agency officials said.

Also key to the Artemis vision are NASA's Orion crew capsule and Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket, which together will get astronauts off the ground and on their way to deep space.

Orion has one flight under its belt, an uncrewed test mission to Earth orbit that took place in December 2014. SLS has not launched yet; it's scheduled to debut late next year on the Artemis 1 mission, which will send an uncrewed Orion on a test flight around the moon.

Orion will provide life support for astronauts aboard the Gateway, along with HALO, which will provide about as much living space as a small studio apartment.


Gateway, and the Artemis program overall, will leverage considerable cooperation from partners in the international community and the private sector. For example, the European Space Agency will provide Orion's service module, and the landers that ferry NASA astronauts from the outpost to the lunar surface will be privately built.

Maxar Technologies' MDA to design lunar rover concept for Canadian Space Agency

MDA has been selected by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to provide a conceptual design of a lunar rover for science exploration and to prepare for human missions on the lunar surface. As part of MDA's concept, the rover would be engineered to travel up to 600 km over its lifetime in the harsh lunar environment via tele-robotic control and advanced autonomous mode, relying on artificial intelligence controlled from the proposed Lunar Gateway and from Earth. The proposed lunar rover concept would conduct expeditions on the far side of the moon near the South Pole region using a robotic arm and a sample capture system to collect samples, carrying a suite of science instruments up to 120 kg. The rover would then return to its lander and deposit the samples into a small rocket known as an ascent vehicle that will carry them to the Gateway. The samples would later be returned to Earth for analysis to improve our understanding of the moon and the early formation of our solar system to prepare for extended human presence beyond Low Earth Orbit. Advancing science is a major goal of this mission and for the rover, the sample selection could utilize MDA-developed sensors for sample selection. "MDA's innovative robotic solutions have been expanding our understanding of space since the 1980s, with the space shuttles' Canadarms and the International Space Station's Mobile Servicing System, comprised of Canadarm2, a highly dexterous two-armed robotic arm known as "Dextre" and the Mobile Base System," said Mike Greenley, group president of MDA.

"The development of the Lunar Gateway and lunar rover are critical next steps in deep space exploration, and MDA is proud to support these initiatives and advance Canada's leading position in space."

The rover concept design forms part of a larger study that includes contributions from the European Space Agency, the Japanese Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, with the objective of preparing technologies and operations for landing astronauts on the surface as early as the late 2020s. In preparation for these landings, this study will define a plan to land the rover by the mid-2020 timeframe.

Key challenges for the rover include operating during the hot lunar day and cold lunar night, each of which lasts approximately 14 consecutive Earth days. The lunar dust is unlike the dirt and soil found anywhere on Earth and affects moving parts and optical coatings and can be problematic for navigation.

MDA will leverage experience gained in development of elements of the ExoMars rover, scheduled to launch in 2020, in development of the Lunar rover.