NASA has designed a different logo solely for its upcoming small space station orbiting around the moon. The space agency is working on the Lunar Orbital Platform (Gateway Platform) to launch its solar-powered space station in lunar orbit that will act as a research laboratory, communication hub, and a short-term habitable unit.
This week, NASA’s Johnson Space Center (Houston) released an update to its employee regarding the new logo dedicated to the space agency’s Gateway program. The launch of Lunar Gateway is a crucial part of NASA’s Artemis program, which is aiming to resend American astronauts to the moon, including the first woman, by 2024.
The Lunar Gateway would serve as a junction while commuting between Earth and the Moon. Orion spacecraft would serve as a halfway carrier traveling between the Earth and the space station, while lunar modules would serve as a mode of transportation between the moon and space station.
NASA is planning to set a highly elliptical and eccentric orbit for its upcoming space station to have access to the almost entire lunar surface, which include the lunar south-pole—target for Artemis program.
On a related note, besides focusing on Mars landing mission, NASA is committed to observing the space events on a regular basis. Based on the recent observations, the space agency considers three asteroids are impending towards our planet and would probably approach by this weekend. Of those three rocks approaching, the largest one measures 84 Meter and the smallest one is 18 Meters.
If the asteroid freely drives through space, it glides the Earth with the extreme speeds of 14,472 mph. However, the space agency expects that the asteroid would pass by the Earth at a quite wide berth. Of the three, asteroid SL 16 would cross the Earth’s pathway by a distance of nearly 1.8 million miles.