National Aeronautics and Space Administration

May 2, 2018 1

Gateway Memorandum for the Record

A statement from NASA regarding partnerships and development of the Lunar Orbital

Platform-Gateway, published May 2, 2018.

Introduction

The Administration and Congress have provided NASA with ambitious goals that will strengthen current 

human spaceflight efforts, ensure continued U.S. leadership in space, foster a robust space economy in 

low-Earth orbit, and extend the Nation’s ability to live and work farther into our solar system in the 

decades ahead. 

As reflected in NASA's Exploration Campaign, the next step in human spaceflight is the establishment of

U.S. preeminence in cislunar space through the operations and the deployment of a U.S.-led lunar orbital

platform, “gateway.” Together with the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion, the gateway is central to 

advancing and sustaining human space exploration goals, and is the unifying single stepping off point in 

our architecture for human cislunar operations, lunar surface access and missions to Mars. The gateway

advances US industry development and ensures US global leadership in an emerging, critical domain 

allowing the US to chart the course by which others may join.

When coupled with government support for small commercial lunar landing systems, the gateway

prepares the United States for larger lunar robotic missions leading to a return of humans to the surface 

of the Moon. As a cislunar spacecraft, it enables a broader human architecture based on the principles of 

reusability and accessibility by a range of government and commercial vehicles. The first element of the 

gateway, a PPE (Power and Propulsion Element), will be launched as early as 2022. This element 

leverages the U.S. commercial satellite expertise and offers American companies an opportunity to 

advance state of the art in communication system spacecraft busses. This effort will not only benefit 

NASA, but also the domestic commercial satellite industry to maintain global advantage. For NASA,the 

gateway provides a platform that enables significant cislunar science and deep space technology 

development, including lunar sample returns and the operation of lunar, robotic, and in-space systems. 

Underscoring broad international support for a gateway, the 14 space agencies participating with NASA in 

the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) have reached consensus regarding the 

importance of a gateway in expanding human presence to the Moon, Mars and deeper into the solar 

system.

Strategy — Gateway Based Exploration in Partnership

NASA will balance and serve as the integrator of the spaceflight capabilities and contributions of U.S.

commercial partners, our international partners and other U.S. government entities. Through partnerships

both domestic and international, NASA will bring innovation and new approaches to the advancement of 

U.S. human spaceflight goals. NASA will lead human exploration in space to achieve U.S. spaceflight 

goals and global exploration objectives. International partnerships with Japan, Europe, Canada, and 

Russia bring over 30 years of Space Shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) experience and have 

been a vital component of U.S. space exploration. NASA expects additional capabilities could be 

provided by other international partners. The gateway offers a compelling vision of the future that will 

attract contributions from U.S. private sector companies and international partners. This activity will 

uphold the U.S. position as a leader in spaceflight and allow the United States to set “rules of road” for 

activities in space. 

Gateway Functions

NASA’s gateway concept distributes necessary functions across high-level capabilities: a power and 

propulsion (and communication) element (PPE), habitation/utilization, logistics resupply, airlock, and 

robotics. An effective habitation/utilization capability comprises pressurized volume containing integrated 

habitation systems and components, docking ports, environmental control and life support systems 

(ECLSS), avionics and control systems, radiation mitigation and monitoring, fire safety systems, 

autonomous capabilities, utilization, and crew health capabilities, including exercise equipment. 
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

May 2, 2018 2

Gateway Architecture

NASA is studying various implementation approaches for the gateway including potential commercial 

design concepts initiated under NASA’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships 

(NextSTEP) habitation development activity. The purpose of the NextSTEP habitation development 

activity includes establishing public-private partnerships with U.S. industry to allow NASA to leverage their 

capabilities and investigate enabling crew habitation needs for a cislunar gateway. In support of this 

effort, the six U.S. companies are developing full-size cislunar habitat ground prototypes which will allow 

NASA and the NextSTEP habitation partners to: 1) evaluate configurations and habitability attributes of 

the concepts; 2) assess how the various systems interact together and with other capabilities like logistics 

modules and airlocks; and 3) provide platforms to test and ensure that the standards and common 

interfaces being considered are comprehensive and enable the intended interoperability. Additionally, 

NASA completed targeted studies in partnership wth five U.S. companies on technical requirements 

drivers and ideas on business approaches for the PPE. In parallel to the domestic efforts, NASA is 

continuing a conceptual gateway study together with its ISS partners. NASA is incorporating the 

spaceflight experience, engineering expertise and potential contributions of our ISS partners in the 

gateway architecture concept analysis. By the summer 2018, the goal is to have the distribution of 

functions across all partners (domestic and International) sufficient to begin design and acquisition work 

on gateway for the remaining elements beyond the PPE. The requirements for the future gateway

elements can be developed serially once the functional allocations are agreed to this summer.

Candidate Partner Contributions

NASA will remain the overall lead as gateway architect, systems integrator, and operator. 

NASA and partner contributions may include:

- Transportation Elements:

o Orion 

§ Including crew module, service module, launch abort system

o SLS 

o Ground processing 

§ Including integration of gateway launch packages for SLS and/or commercial 

launch vehicles

o Commercial launch vehicles 

- Gateway Capabilities:

o PPE to include initial lunar telecommunication capabilities 

o Utilization/Habitation capabilities & elements comprising pressurized volumes containing 

integrated habitation systems and components, docking ports, environmental control and 

life support systems (ECLSS), avionics and control systems, radiation mitigation and 

monitoring, fire safety systems, autonomous capabilities, utilization, and crew health 

capabilities, including exercise equipment. 

o Multiple logistics support flights

o Crew airlock, science airlock and science airlock outfitting

o Science experiments (both internal and external) to include cubesat deployer used in 

concert with a science airlock

o Docking, additional propellant storage with the potential of additional fuel for the gateway

and advanced lunar telecommunication capabilities

o Robotic manipulator arm including robotic interfaces

o Rendezvous sensor packages

o Support to human and robotic lunar surface missions

- Mission Control Center

- Launch facilities

- Payload and experiments operations centers

By the end of this year, the gateway requirements will be baselined, which will enable the acquisition and 

partnership activities leading to gateway hardware development and deployment. As announced in 
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

May 2, 2018 3

February 2018, NASA is preparing to release a Broad Agency Announcmenet to solicit innovative 

partnership proposals for the PPE with launch in 2022. The PPE demonstrates the partnership approach 

with U.S. industry for the whole gateway, capitalizing on developments in high power SEP and 

investments within the U.S. telecommunications industry to partner with NASA while minimizing costs. 

This partnership is intended to advance and diffuse advanced electric propulsion technology into the U.S.

commercial satellite industry, leading to a U.S. competitive advantage. NASA’s SLS will deliver Orion and 

additional elements as co-manifested components to complete the construction of the gateway. Orion will 

serve as an in-space tug to deliver and dock gateway elements during intial assembly as well as 

delivering the astronauts to carry out research and technology development activites from this unique 

vantage point. 

Forward Plans

NASA will continue maturation of the gateway acquisition and partner planning activities utilizing mutually

beneficial approaches in public-private and international partnerships to inform NASA's exploration plans 

for the lunar surface and ultimately, toward Mars. Future acquisition analyses will address element

configurations; options for deployment using SLS, Orion and commercial launch vehicles; incorporation of

commercial, science, and technology plans outside of NASA needs; and feature the development of a 

gateway for cislunar space. Lessons learned from almost 20 years of operating the ISS and other largescale multi-party collaborations will be applied to manage and integrate partner contributions. While 

acquisition and manufacturing of hardware to support human spaceflight is a multi-year endeavor, NASA 

will be making decisions on key gateway capabilities in the summer of 2018. With the gateway

construction and deployment in the early-mid 2020s in mind, NASA will be working closely with 

international and domestic partners to enable the activities necessary to preserve this schedule.