February 27–March 1, 2018
Denver, Colorado

As part of the effort to explore the utilization of the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, NASA invited scientists and engineers to an agency workshop in Denver, Colorado, February 27–March 1, 2018, which was supported by the Lunar and Planetary Institute and All Points Logistics. Participants had a kick-off discussion on how the gateway could be used to enable science near the Moon. NASA received more than 190 abstracts, with topics covering human health and performance, Earth observation, astrophysics, heliophysics, and lunar and planetary science.

The goals of the workshop were to (1) engage the scientific community, (2) discuss different scientific investigations that could leverage the gateway’s location and infrastructure, and (3) discuss what resources the identified scientific investigations would need.

After a set of introductory briefings about specific plans for the gateway, lessons learned from the International Space Station, and international perspectives, participants broke into five parallel sessions organized according to science discipline: Heliophysics, Earth Science, Astrophysics and Fundamental Physics, Lunar and Planetary Science, and Life Sciences and Space Biology. These parallel sessions consisted of a mixture of presentations and discussion periods. They were followed by a series of crosscutting sessions that discussed potential gateway capabilities needed to support external instrumentation, internal instrumentation, sample investigations, telerobotic operations, and infrastructure.

The gateway is the next step in human exploration of the solar system and is anticipated to support multiple NASA, commercial, and international partner objectives in cislunar space and beyond. It will consist of a power and propulsion element and habitation, airlock, and logistics capabilities. NASA is targeting launch the power and propulsion element in 2022. Crew are expected to visit the gateway once per year.

The workshop provided NASA’s human spaceflight team with a basic understanding of the science that could be conducted from the vantage point of lunar orbit, and the potential spacecraft resources that would be required. The agency is reviewing the workshop findings, and has published an article on NASA.gov with additional details.

For more information, and to view the program and abstracts, visit the workshop website at https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/deepspace2018/.