Lockheed Martin design for a cis-lunar habitat which could become the basis for a long range spacecraft. Courtesy: Lockheed Martin
Although Russia’s annexation of parts of Ukraine and its alleged involvement in trying to interfere in other nations’ democratic elections (including the US Presidential election), at one time threatened the future of the International Space Station, that has not prevented NASA and Roscosmos deciding to come together to design a new space station – this time orbiting around the Moon.
NASA has signed a joint statement with the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, at 68th International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2017) in Adelaide, Australia, to study the construction of a deep space gateway in cislunar space. A key element of their study is to ensure that future deep space exploration missions take full advantage of technology development and demonstration enabled by the International Space Station, as well as lessons learned from its assembly and operations. Lockheed and Boeing are already working on their very similar concepts for such a station located in cis-lunar space.
Comment by David Todd: Remember this is just the design/paper end of the cis-Lunar orbiting station project rather than a commitment to join up to fund its full construction and operation.
