NASA To Build Spaceport Near the Moon-reusable transport spacecraft also planned as agency unveils Deep Space Gateway concept

Yesterday,28 March 2017,NASA posted an article to its website unveiling the most detailed plan yet for the Orion Program.The new projects,which it calls Deep Space Gateway,expand upon the basic concept of using cislunar space,the area in the lunar vicinity,as a testing ground for missions to the Mars system and elsewhere in the solar system.These projects will enable the building and testing of systems needed for the Mission to Mars and other celestial bodies.*
NASA now intends to build a spaceport,essentially a small space station,within the early Orion crewed missions,to serve as a gateway to deep space and the lunar surface as well.It will contain a power bus;a small habitat that would extend crewed mission time;docking capability;airlock;and servicing by logistics modules to enable research.The spaceport,which NASA also calls the gateway,will be propelled by high power electric and chemical propulsion to sustain the station's orbit or transfer it among a family of orbits in cislunar space as needed.The gateway will be made possible by the Space Launch System rocket's cargo capability plus the Orion spacecraft's crewed deep space capability.The project will be developed,serviced and utilised in collaboration with commercial and international partners,NASA pointed out.*
Dr.William Gerstenmaier,NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations,described the Deep Space Gateway thusly:
I envision different partners,both international and commercial,contributing to the gateway and using it in a variety of ways with a system that can move to different orbits to enable a variety of missions.The gateway would move to support robotic or partner missions to the surface of the Moon;or to a higher lunar orbit to support missions departing from the gateway to other destinations in the solar system.*
The agency also intends to build a reusable transport spacecraft powered by electric/chemical propulsion that will depart from the gateway for destinations such as Mars.It will take crews to their destination,then return to the spaceport for servicing and eventual reuse.This transport vehicle will also take advantage of the SLS capability to launch large volumes and mass,as well as advanced exploration technologies now being developed and tested on the ground and in the ISS.*
The first integrated flight of the Orion system,Exploration Mission-1,including the new SLS rocket,Orion spacecraft and ESA Orion Service Module,is currently scheduled for 2018,but would be delayed to 2019,if a NASA study now underway recommends making EM-1 a crewed mission.*
This burst of energy from NASA no doubt reflects the strong commitment of President Donald Trump to the agency and America's continued leadership in aerospace.

First Integrated Piece of Space Launch System Hardware Headed for Cape Canaveral AFS - NASA's new deep space rocket

The Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage,or ICPS,which is the upper stage of the massive Space Launch System deep space rocket,is currently being transported by barge and truck to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station,Florida from Alabama.Its destination is the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Operation Center at the Cape.The ICPS is the first piece of integrated SLS hardware that will arrive at the Cape for final processing and testing before shipment to Ground Systems Development Operations at Kennedy Space Center prior to launch on Exploration Mission-1 in the 2018-19 time frame.At the request of the White House,NASA began a formal feasibility study on 17 February 2017 of making EM-1 the first crewed mission of the Orion spacecraft,moving that goal up from 2021.In a more informal study of the question the agency conducted on its own,NASA concluded it would be technically possible to meld the first crewed mission with the EM-1 shakedown mission of the integrated Orion/SLS.The formal review,with input from the Astronaut Office and a lot of consideration of crew safety,will be ready in about a month.*
Designed and built by Boeing in Huntsville,Alabama and United Launch Alliance,a Boeing/Lockheed Martin partnership,in Decatur,Alabama,the ICPS will propel Orion and 13 secondary payloads of CubeSats (small satellites) to a point beyond the Moon,into deep space.If EM-1 is crewed,NASA says there would likely be two crew members on an 8-9 day mission to cislunar space,in a high orbit around the Moon farther out than humans have gone before,where the goal of reaching the Mars system will be advanced through a series of Orion missions.*
Eventually,the ICPS will be replaced by the more powerful Exploration Upper Stage,or EUS,which will be capable of taking astronauts far beyond the Moon,to the Mars system or elsewhere.
Boeing (BA),Lockheed Martin (LMT)