The Lunar Gateway received its official name on the 7th of November 2019 when NASA designated it simply as Gateway. This decision followed a period where the project was known as the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway or LOP-G since early 2019.
Canada contributes the Canadarm3 robotic arm through MDA Space while the European Space Agency provides the I-Hab module along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre builds the Crew and Science Airlock Module scheduled for launch around 2030 and ESA also delivers the ESPRIT service module containing xenon and hydrazine capacity plus communications equipment.
Maxar Technologies received a contract worth US$375 million in May 2019 to manufacture the Power and Propulsion Element which uses four 6 kW Busek Hall-effect thrusters and three 12 kW AEPS thrusters for total output under 50 kW. The PPE has an expected service time of about fifteen years and both initial modules launch together on a Falcon Heavy rocket no earlier than 2027.
The station deploys into a near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon with a period of approximately seven days. This eccentricity takes the station within 8,000 kilometers of the lunar north pole surface at closest approach and it travels as far away as 69,000 kilometers over the lunar south pole.
Former NASA administrator Michael D. Griffin testified that immediate return from the lunar surface is possible only every six and a half days creating unacceptable risks for stranded crews whether on the surface or in lunar orbit. Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin labeled it NASA's worst plan yet exposing subjects to irradiation like Nazi doctors did during World War Two while geologist Clive Neal called the Gateway a waste of money failing to fulfill space policy goals.
President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on the 4th of July 2025 allocating US$2.6 billion which requires at least US$750 million spent annually from fiscal year 2026 through 2028. A previous budget proposal from the 2nd of May 2025 had suggested canceling the program citing escalating costs before this legislation was enacted.