NASA, Canadian Space Agency Formalize Gateway Partnership for Artemis Program

Illustration of Gateway

NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) finalized an agreement between the United States and Canada to collaborate on the Gateway, an outpost orbiting the Moon that will provide vital support for a sustainable, long-term return of astronauts to the lunar surface as part of NASA’s Artemis program. This Gateway agreement further solidifies the United States’ broad effort to engage international partners in sustainable lunar exploration as part of the Artemis program and to demonstrate technologies needed for human missions to Mars.

Under this agreement, CSA will provide the Gateway’s external robotics system, including a next-generation robotic arm, known as Canadarm3. CSA will also provide robotic interfaces for Gateway modules, which will enable payload installation, including that of the first two scientific instruments aboard the Gateway. The agreement also marks NASA’s commitment to providing two crew opportunities for Canadian astronauts on Artemis missions, one to the Gateway and one on Artemis II.

CSA will be responsible for end-to-end external robotics, including engineering and operations. Canadarm3 will move end-over-end to reach many parts of the Gateway’s exterior, where its anchoring “hand” will plug into specially designed interfaces. Delivery to the lunar outpost is targeted in 2026 via a U.S. commercial logistics supply flight.

Approximately one-sixth the size of the International Space Station, the Gateway will function as a way station located tens of thousands of miles at its farthest distance from the lunar surface, in a near-rectilinear halo orbit. NASA and its international and commercial partners will conduct unprecedented deep space science and technology investigations from this lunar vantage. It will serve as a rendezvous point for astronauts traveling to lunar orbit onboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket prior to transit to low-lunar orbit and the surface of the Moon.

NASA astronauts will board a commercially developed lander for the final leg of the journey to the lunar surface. The agency has contracted with American industry to develop the first two Gateway components, PPE and HALO, as well as logistics resupply for Gateway.

To learn more about NASA’s Gateway program, visit https://nasa.gov/gateway.