Northrop Wraps up HALO Preliminary Design Review; Steve Krein Quoted

Northrop Grumman has completed the initial preliminary design review (PDR) for the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO), the company reported on Wednesday. The module will support NASA’s Lunar Gateway by working as a crew habitat and docking hub for vehicles. 

“By basing the HALO module on Cygnus, we are able to deliver an affordable and reliable flight-proven product on an accelerated timeline,” said Steve Krein, vice president of civil and commercial satellites at Northrop Grumman. “Maturing HALO through its preliminary design marks a major milestone in the module’s production.”

HALO will house astronauts at the Gateway during lunar exploration missions. HALO’s has been based on the company’s flight-proven Cygnus spacecraft, which delivers supplies, equipment and experiments to the International Space Station (ISS).

HALO has integrated command and control systems, and environmental control and life support systems. With NASA’s Orion spacecraft docked, HALO will be able to sustain up to four astronauts for up to 30 days during travel.

Northrop Grumman’s work on HALO is a follow-on to the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships 2 (NextSTEP-2) program, where the company used virtual reality and 3-D printed models to support rapid prototyping of the NextSTEP-2 habitat modules.  

In addition to HALO, Northrop Grumman recently partnered with Blue Origin to develop the Human Landing System (HLS) for the Artemis program. Northrop Grumman will provide the Transfer Element vehicle that lowers the landing system into low lunar orbit. 

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