Gateway’s HALO Making Moves

Monday 10 June 2024

Gateway’s HALO Making Moves

A large cylindrical module, the HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost) for NASA's Gateway space station, is being carefully moved inside a spacious industrial facility by technicians at Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy. The module is suspended by cranes and surrounded by workers in white lab coats and safety gear, preparing it for a series of stress tests.

Technicians at a Thales Alenia Space industrial plant in Turin, Italy. guide Gateway’s HALO module to its stress testing location.

Thales Alenia Space

The Gateway space station’s HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost), one of four modules where astronauts will live, conduct science, and prepare for lunar surface missions, is a step closer to launch following welding completion in Turin, Italy, a milestone highlighted by NASA earlier this year.

Teams at Thales Alenia Space gently guide HALO to a new location in the company’s facility for a series of stress tests to ensure the module’s safety. Upon successful completion, the future home for astronauts will travel to Gilbert, Arizona, where Northrop Grumman will complete final outfitting ahead of launch to lunar orbit with Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element.

NASA and its international partners will explore the scientific mysteries of deep space with Gateway, humanity’s first space station in lunar orbit supporting the Artemis campaign to return humans to the Moon and chart a path for the first human missions to Mars.

Learn more about Gateway at: https://nasa.gov/gateway.