Abstract
The objective of NASA’s Project Artemis is to place humans on the moon by 2024, and to do so in a way that subsequently establishes a sustainable human presence on the Moon. In order to accomplish this goal, there is a great need to cheaply and reliably transport humans and cargo to and from the Moon. The Lunar Gateway is NASA’s reference architecture to evolve a sturdy lunar orbiting station. It is currently planned to be placed in a lunar polar orbit, called the near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO), that aims to service future operations and infrastructure construction on the south polar lunar surface. The Lunar Gateway is also intended to be a testbed for evolving an interplanetary transit vehicle for expeditions to Mars and beyond. The ARCHER concept (A Reimagined Cycler for Human ExcuRsions) proposes a dramatically different application for the Lunar Gateway that may allow it to better serve the needs of Project Artemis, as well as position it as the first evolutionary block in a new transportation network between the Earth and Moon.
Published Version
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