NASA’s Cislunar Human Outpost
NASA is pressing ahead with plans for a cislunar “gateway” outpost for
future human missions to space. Concepts are being studied for
launching the first elements of the proposed outpost. The outpost will
be a collection of habitation, cargo and other modules that could
support crews working in lunar orbit or elsewhere in cislunar space
for extended periods. Orion spacecraft would ferry astronauts to and
from the outpost, where they could test technologies and perform other
work needed to support NASA’s long-term plans for human missions to
Mars in the 2030s.
VCOM-to-Deep Space Gateway
Intracom is working with NASA to implement a VCOM-to-VCOM SIP trunk
over a space-to-ground comm link based on Delay / Disruption Tolerant
Networking (DTN). According to NASA engineers, this capability has
potentially extensive use in the Deep Space Gateway (DSG) cislunar
program over the next decade.