President Biden: NASA to Welcome Japanese Astronaut Aboard Gateway
TOKYO (NASA PR) — President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met in Tokyo Monday where they announced progress on collaboration for human and robotic lunar missions. They confirmed their commitment to include a Japanese astronaut aboard the lunar Gateway outpost and their shared ambition to see a future Japanese astronaut land on the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
“In recent years, the alliance between Japan and the United States has grown stronger, deeper, and more capable as we work together to take on new challenges – just as important as the opportunities – of a rapidly changing world,” said President Biden. “A great example of this: We viewed Japan’s lunar rover… a symbol of how our space cooperation is taking off, looking towards the Moon and to Mars. And I’m excited about the work we’ll do together on the Gateway station around the Moon and look forward to the first Japanese astronaut joining us in the mission to the lunar surface under the Artemis program.”
The United States and Japan are working to formalize the Japanese astronaut’s inclusion on Gateway through an Implementing Arrangement later this year.
“Our shared ambition to see Japanese and American astronauts walk on the Moon together reflects our nations’ shared values to explore space responsibly and transparently for the benefit of humanity here on Earth,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “With this historic announcement, President Biden is once again showing nations throughout the world that America will not go alone but with like-minded partners. Under Artemis, it’s our intention to invest in and explore the cosmos with countries that promote science, economic opportunity, and a common set of shared values.”
As part of ongoing collaborations on space and Earth science missions, President Biden and Prime Minister Kishida reaffirmed the United States and Japan’s continued cooperation on Earth science data sharing to improve scientific understanding of the Earth’s changing climate.
In addition, the president confirmed the United States’ intention to provide Japan with a sample from the asteroid Bennu in 2023, collected from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. Japan provided the United States with an asteroid sample collected by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Hayabusa2 asteroid sample-return mission in 2021.
JAXA also is critical partner to NASA in helping the agency achieve its goals in science and human exploration, including on the International Space Station and through the Artemis. In 2020, Japan became an original signatory of the Artemis Accords and finalized an agreement with NASA to provide several capabilities for Gateway’s I-HAB, which will provide the heart of Gateway life support capabilities and additional space where crew will live, work, and conduct research during Artemis missions. JAXA’s planned contributions include I-HAB’s environmental control and life support system, batteries, thermal control, and imagery components, which will be integrated into the module by ESA (European Space Agency) prior to launch. These capabilities are critical for sustained Gateway operations during crewed and uncrewed time periods.
To read more about NASA’s Artemis missions, visit:
23 responses to “President Biden: NASA to Welcome Japanese Astronaut Aboard Gateway”
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Guess they’re really going to go ahead with Gateway…
Well, welcome aboard, Japan
After spending so much on the SLS/Orion they need to have a destination for it.
It is a Moon rocket no matter how often spacex fanboys make up B.S. like it cannot go anywhere. It is going. We are going. You can weep bitter tears while I cheer.
All rockets are “Moon Rockets” if they are able to send payloads to the lunar vicinity.
No, they have to send people. That is why all rockets are not called Moon rockets. There has only been one Moon Rocket that actually sent people Beyond Earth Orbit. Soon two. You just make up whatever nonsense sounds like it will promote spacex in some way. Brain damage.
At the slow pace that SLS/Orion is progressing, you could conceivably see a private manned spacecraft docking with Gateway before Orion does. The Artemis 3 mission with docking equipment installed on Orion won’t fly earlier than 2025, and more likely late 2026.
In theory, Gateway could be docked with at almost any point after it is launched in 2024, even though it is planned to take many months of transit before reaching it’s final NRHO lunar position.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
$L$ delenda est
you could conceivably see a private manned spacecraft docking with Gateway before Orion does
not a chance
Well, you will be not please that a private crewed vehicle could docked with the Gateway if the SLS/Orion combo with a docking system don’t make the schedule date.
If required a Crew Dragon could be send to commissioned the Gateway in LEO before the Gateway departs for NRHO.
Since Artemis III will not use the Gateway. If the SLS/Orion is MIA for Artemis IV, the stand-in is the Lunar Starship acting as the ferry between LEO and NRHO.
would you take a Dragon or a Starliner to the Gateway? I would not. the Sun is active…there are no provisions on either capsule to protect either an occupant or the electronics from a solar flare. Neither has provisions for long range non GPS navigation or communications.
I think some version of either could be built that are deeper space capable…but that wont be cheap and the vehicles will get heavier and look more and more like Orion
As a systems troubleshooter I am intimately familiar with cognitive dissonance: when denial takes over. I have seen it dozens of times at every level, in my work on aircraft and up the ladder to higher rungs in the chain of command. What is bizarre is that when it is over people conveniently forget they were so stupid and make excuses…and often make the same mistakes in the future. Those involved in space have unfortunately always conflated two very different arenas and continue to do so. There is “Space Flight” and there is “Human Space Flight.” They are, besides the common attribute of space travel, almost completely different fields of endeavor. The Space Shuttle is perhaps the ultimate example of this dissonance, as it combined, against all logic, human and cargo missions. This was probably the best feature of the cancelled Constellation program- the separation of crew and cargo launch vehicles.
Human Space Flight begins with a single issue that continues to be denied and ignored after well over half a century: Dosing and Debilitation. The problem is that addressing this elephant in the room is seen as fantastically expensive and completely unacceptable. The reality is that it is what MUST be and if we don’t want to spend the money then we will never go anywhere. “Entrepreneurs” or “the flexible path” or “limited goals” are going to fail. We must go to stay. A Near Sea Level Radiation One Gravity environment (NSLR1G) is the prerequisite.
Birchbark canoes were never going to cross the North Atlantic.
There is no cheap.
Ahem. The Crew Dragon or Starliner personnel is only commissioning the Gateway in LEO. Before the Gateway does a slow ride to NHRO without crew. Quite similar to a trip to the ISS for the personnel. Of course Boeing have to find a new launcher for Starliner first, since all the Atlas Vs are earmarked for ISS missions.
AIUI radiation protection in the Orion is only marginally better than the commercial crew capsules. Also the Orion is only crew rated for about 2 weeks of endurance without attaching to a larger habitat.
The outer shape of the Orion is mostly scaled up copy of the legacy Apollo command module. Along with Mike Griffin’s anti EELV features of extra wide diameter and excess overall vehicle mass, so that even the Delta IV Heavy can only loft a complete Orion stack to low LEO.
the gateway sadly is not going to be built in LEO…it goes straight to the lunar orbit
Orion has significantly better protection for the crew and equipment then either commercial vehicle…and Vulcan will launch Starliner easily not sure your point
AIUI the Gateway will be parking in LEO first before departure. I could be mistaken.
Boeing have to pay for man-rating the Vulcan Centaur itself. Unlikely NASA will spend more on the Starliner until all the Atlas Vs have flown, if at all.
I am quite certain NASA will pay but in any event Vulcan will be human rated. there is no earth orbit for the gateway
This is old news…but the best I could find with a quick search.
…NASA’s new plan calls for launching the combined PPE and HALO modules in November 2023, and using the PPE’s solar electric propulsion system to make its way to lunar orbit over the course of nine to ten months…
They’ll look like Starships – because they will be Starships.
we will see 🙂 happy memorial day
There is definitely a chance. But the vehicle would be a Starship and the point of docking to a teensy thing like Gateway rather escapes me.
…the point of docking to a teensy thing like Gateway rather escapes me…
The point of earning NASA money comes to my mind. But I don’t see NASA as being too eager to have a picture of that scenario making the top of the news. The term “elephant in the room” also comes to my mind.
yeap its the new space station…
This for a station that hasn’t even been built on the ground, for a capsule that has never carried a person into space or back to Earth, and for a rocket that still needs testing. All of which has been more than ten years in the making post-Shuttle. I’m just frustrated.
When you have to pay for a 3 billion dollar a year (now 4 billion) spacex ISS cash cow and develop two crew taxis while dealing with two faced NASA double agents working for Musk (one of them unashamedly comments on these forums) then expect nothing more.
Sending astronauts Beyond Low Earth Orbit has significant risk attached to it due to solar events. There were only seven missions that have carried humans Beyond Earth Orbit and there was a very close call during that less than 4 year space age.
Dosing and debilitation is the elephant in the room NASA will not discuss. There is a “career dose” that once reached means no more space missions. This makes for very short careers for astronauts and essentially means humans are not going to live and work in space for twenty or thirty years like they do on Earth. It is likely that a Mars mission cannot be accomplished without exceeding this career dose.
The plan for a lunar return should have been to preposition a shielded habitat and not send astronauts until it was ready. Until that happens there is not going to be a permanent human presence in cislunar space like there has been in LEO.