Officials have mostly accused of changing the requirements for delays and increasing costs. NASA’s managers dramatically changed their plans for the gateway program in 2020, when they decided to launch PPE and Hallo on the same rocket, which led to a major change in their designs.
NASA, nominated by Trump for the NASA Administrator, refused to make a pledge in the gateway program during the hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee on April 9. Cruz is one of the biggest supporters of the gateway program in Congress as it is managed by the Johnson Space Center in Texas. If it moves forward, the gateway will guarantee a number of jobs under NASA’s mission control in Houston for 15 years.
“If this is an area that has been confirmed, I would like to roll my sleeves and understand what is working. And where are some challenges, because I think the gateway is a component of many programs that are more than the budget and behind the schedule. “
The pressure shell for housing and logistics post (Hallow) module arrived in Gilbert in Arizona last week for internal organization.
Credit: NASA/Josh Wall Carcel
Checking with the gateway
However, the gateway program won a milestone a week before Ishaqman’s confirmation. The metal pressure shell for the Hallow module was sent to Arizona from its factory in Italy. The Hallow module is only partially complete, and lacks life -supporting systems and other hardware that needs to be run into space.
In the next two years, Northop Gromine will develop a residence dress with these ingredients and connect it to the power and propolus factor under construction in the Mexor technologies in the Silicon Valley. Along with this phase of the spacecraft, the Perl Launch Testing, often covers issues that can increase costs and stimulate further delays.
Ars recently spoke to Bio -Mechanical Engineer and veteran Space Shuttle Flight Controller Jon Ollinson, who now manages the gateway program at the Johnson Space Center. There is a copy of our conversation with Olinson. It has been lightly modified for clarification and race.
ARS: The Hallow Module has arrived in Italy to Arizona. What’s ahead?
Olinson: This Hallow module went through significant efforts from an elementary and secondary structure to Thalas Eliya in Italy. He focused most of his focus on building a car to go to Arizona. Now that it is in Arizona, Northup is forming it there in Gilbert so that we can be able to carry out all the systems that we need to carry out these missions, preserve staff and enable science that we are looking for. So, if you consider your standard spacecraft, you need all your command and control capabilities, your avionics system, your computers, your network management, all the things needed to control the vehicle. You are going to achieve your power distribution capabilities. Hello is linked to the strength and propolus factor, and it provides basic power distribution capacity for the entire station. So they will all be part of Hello. You will have your standard thermal system for active cooling. You will have the environmental control systems of vehicles that will need to be installed, [along with] Some other staff systems that you can think about, lighting, restrictions, mobility aids, about all different staff systems. Then, of course, all our science aspects. So we have an internally pay -load lockers, as well as payload sites are external, so we have all the different systems you need for human -ranked spacecraft.
ARS: What is the latest status of strength and propolason element?
Olinson: The PPE is significantly better in their assembly and integration activities. The central cylinder has been connected with the propulsion tanks … their proposal module is in good shape. They are working on the Avonics shelf affiliated with the spacecraft. Therefore, with both vehicles, we are really trying to perform the assembly next year or so, so we can currently be involved in an integrated spacecraft test.
ARS: What is the main way to reach the launch pad?
Olinson: The activity of assembly and integration is really key for us. This is to go to a complete level test of the vehicle. All the different activities on which we are working on the vehicles are making significant progress. Therefore, it is a matter of bringing all of them and assembling and integrating them in proper settings, so that we can collect the vehicles and reach the place where we can really force the vehicles and the way we need to test. Obviously, the software is a key part of this development activity, once we have the power over the vehicles, making sure we can do all the controls we need for these vehicles.
[There are] I will mention these lines. On the PPE, we have an electrical propulsion system. Throsters associated with this system are being provided. They will undergo acceptance testing at the Glenn Research Center [in Ohio] And then connect to the spacecraft in Mexar. So this work is going on as we speak. In ESA, ESA is providing a lunar communication system. It will be supplied later this year. It will be installed on Hello as part of its integrated test and checkout and then launched on Hello. It provides us with the full capacity of communication at the lunar level, where PPE provides communication capacity back to the ground. Therefore, they are the key ingredients we want to provide later this year.
Jon Olinson, manager of NASA’s Gateway Program at Houston’s Johnson Space Center.
Credit: NASA/Andrew Carlson
ARS: What is the status of electrical propullasses throtters for PPE?
Olinson: The first has already been delivered, so we will have the opportunity, as I said, testing acceptance for these people. The second flight units are in connection with the first supply. They will make it through testing their acceptance, then the merger will be delivered to the PPE. So, this work is already underway. [The Power and Propulsion Element will have three xenon-fueled 12-kilowatt Hall thrusters produced by Aerojet Rocketdyne, and four smaller 6-kilowatt thrusters.]
ARS: The Government Accountability Office (GAO) last year sought concerns about keeping the gateway’s rocket capacity in a large scale. Is there any progress on this issue? Will you need to remove the ingredients from the Hello module and launch on the future mission? Would you tighten your launch Windows just to launch on an efficiently -moving path to the fuel?
Olinson: We are working on this project. Now that we are launching both vehicles together, we are working on mass management. Massive administration is always the problem of the development of the spacecraft, so it is not different for us. All the things you have described are the nobes that are in the commercial place when we move forward, but basically, we are working to design more and more spacecraft we can do first. So, this is the key. When we supply all the ingredients, we can measure extensively in all these ingredients, understanding that we look like our integrated moss, and we have many different options to ensure that we are able to perform the mission we need to implement. All of them will be balanced over time, based on the effects there. There is no need for many of these decisions today. We have already made from the design point of view. Those who need to activate future decisions, we have already made them all. Therefore, really, the thing we are working through is being able to make decisions at the appropriate time, which we need, to go to the NRHO. [Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit, an elliptical orbit around the Moon]And then be able to put into practice Artemis missions in the future.
ARS: The GAO also discussed a problem with the gateway, which has something widely like the stars. What is the latest status of this problem?
Olinson: There are many different risks through which we work as a program, as you expect. We continue to look at all the possibilities and work through them. This is our job, so that they can be able to do so on a daily basis. With a stack controllenty [issue]Where it came for Gao, we were initially diagnosed with the potential effects that could be from meeting no one but cars. [vehicle] But no incoming car. We are a small space station compared to the ISS, so make sure we understand the implications of the throster firing because the vehicles approach the station, and they have affiliated implications, where they have been discussing the stack.
Mexor usually does not have to deal with docking usually. A portion of what we are doing is operating in the ways we can use the capabilities that we have already developed in the spacecraft so that we can provide the control authority when we have a visit to the vehicles, as well as working with the vehicles and their design to make sure that they are less likely to have an impact. Therefore, the combination of these two has been widely, since the last year, since the report came out, where we are from the point of view of the stack. We still have the work ahead that shut down all the various potential issues there. We will continue to work through them. This is a standard forward work, but we have been able to create some updates, some software updates, some management updates, and logic updates that really allow us to effectively control the stack and have the right amount of the control control authority of docking and integration that we need to implement.