In Moon Camp Explorers each team’s mission is to 3D design a complete Moon Camp using Tinkercad. They also have to explain how they will use local resources, protect astronauts from the dangers of space and describe the living and working facilities in their Moon Camp.
IC PIMENTEL FONSECA Pontecagnano (SA)-Campania Italy 13 0 / 2 English
In our project, we decided to represent the ‘Lunar geteway’, a space station planned to go around the Moon by NASA, ESA and other companies to be launched from 2024. The Gateway Space Station will consist of seven modules, plus a robotic arm provided by Canada, reaching 125 m³ of habitable space. It will be ‘positioned’ 380,000 km away from earth and will take 5 days to arrive.
The astronauts want to go to the Moon to try to establish stable bases in which to carry out experiments and research, and to receive information from the natural satellite so that they can then have a better chance of planning to go to Mars. The idea is to create an intermediate phase by stationing the Gateway lunar base close to the Moon, starting to descend temporarily and doing experiments in orbit.
In the lunar orbit
The idea is to create an intermediate phase by stationing the Gateway lunar base close to the Moon, starting to descend temporarily and doing experiments in orbit.
It will have a cylindrical shape with the addition of four hatches, two on-axis and two radial, and due to the absence of space junk in the cis-lunar area, less thick walls will suffice. Inside, there will be sleeping, cooking and exercise spaces. The astronauts must therefore ration their food and water supplies and minimise waste production.
Being a station in lunar orbit it will of course be more protected than a base on lunar soil, although it will still be 400,000 km away from Earth, so there are different arrangements than on the ISS.
Basic needs (food and water) can be shipped from Earth in the same way as supplies on the ISS, only on Gateway it will take a couple of days and not a couple of hours. Energy will be obtained sustainably with photovoltaic panels.
Although the astronauts are not always on the lunar surface, the situation is different from the ISS, which is 400 km from Earth, here on Gateway the astronauts are still on an orbiting station but almost 400,000 km from Earth, very close to the Moon, so the training programme must be rigorous anyway. This training programme includes exercises in order to prevent muscle and bone loss and to maintainphisycal fitness in microgravity to maintain strog. The astronauts prepare themselves with exercises in water and also for expeditions in special conditions, such as inside caves or in submarine stations.
