Gateway – a communications platform for lunar exploration

Abstract

As stated by a NASA administrator, “NASA, International Partners, and commercial partner are going forward to the moon. With Artemis, we will be exploring more of the Moon than ever before, and this time we are planning to stay. We will be demonstrating new technologies, capabilities, and business approaches needed for future exploration of Mars.” To support the complex, Artemis exploration campaign envisioned, the Gateway program is developing a communication network orbiting the Moon. Gateway will provide relay communication paths and radiometric tracking between crewed and robotic systems on the lunar surface or in cis-lunar space to mission control on the Earth. This paper is a high-level description of Gateway's communication and ranging capabilities, the motivation and use of internationally developed interoperability standards, potential upgrade opportunities, and challenges as Gateway enables technology to support future Mars exploration.