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NASA’s Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot claims that lunar exploration and the shuffling of astronauts to and from its surface will be commonplace in 2030. What will make this possible is the Lunar Orbiting Platform, a station that will orbit the moon and allow constant trips to it. New landers and habitat modules are being planned to support the goal.
“At the moon, we’ll have people transiting from the platform back down to the surface of the moon,” he said. “We’ll have a constant set of flights going back and forth that will allow us to do the work that we want to do on the moon.” The platform is the Lunar Orbiting Platform – Gateway, a human-tended facility in cislunar space formerly known as the Deep Space Gateway.
“At the moon, we’ll have people transiting from the platform back down to the surface of the moon,” he said. “We’ll have a constant set of flights going back and forth that will allow us to do the work that we want to do on the moon.” The platform is the Lunar Orbiting Platform – Gateway, a human-tended facility in cislunar space formerly known as the Deep Space Gateway.