NASA Prepares To Start Work On First Lunar Gateway Cargo Mission

NASA is set to commence work later this year on the inaugural cargo mission for the Lunar Gateway Station, three years after awarding the contract to SpaceX.

During a panel discussion at the SpaceCom conference on February 22, Mark Wiese, the Deep Space Logistics Manager for NASA's Gateway Program, shared that the agency had postponed the commencement of work on the first logistics mission to concentrate on other elements of the Gateway program stating that "logistics is the shortest pole in the tent from a development standpoint" when looking at the overall Artemis architecture.

The contract for the first mission allows for a four-year lead time for SpaceX, but Wiese suggested that SpaceX maybe be prepared to execute the mission more quickly than that.

The Contract

NASA awarded SpaceX its initial Gateway Logistics Services contract in March 2020; the contract was to transport cargo to and from the lunar Gateway. To accomplish this, SpaceX was set to create a variation of its Cargo Dragon spacecraft named Dragon XL, which would be launched on a Falcon Heavy rocket to transport multiple tons of cargo to the Gateway and dispose of waste. Since the contact was awared very little advancement on the project has been seen by the public.

A NASA representative shared a year following the contract's approval, that the first mission's formal authorization to proceed (ATP) had been delayed as NASA was going to examine the Artemis program's overall plans and determined when the mission would be required.

Starship to Lunar Gateway

Wiese also revealed that NASA has been collaborating with SpaceX on various studies aimed at refining the design of the Dragon XL and exploring different cargo configurations and capabilities that could be supported by the spacecraft.

Although he confirmed that SpaceX plans to use the Dragon XL for the initial missions, Wiese didn't rule out the possibility of employing the company's Starship for cargo transport in the future. "We are open to enabling evolution," he stated. "We have had discussions with them about Starship development and how it all fits together, but we are not there yet because it is still in the developmental stage."

Future Contracts

In addition, NASA intends to expand the Gateway Logistics Services contract to include more providers. Wiese explained that the agency had issued a request for information in 2022 to learn about emerging industry capabilities, such as new launch vehicles.

"We want to include more providers; it's just a matter of funding," he remarked. "We must initiate our first mission and establish a funding stream to justify bringing on additional providers."