NASA plans to build a floating outpost near the moon where a team of astronauts can live and conduct research missions to the lunar surface and beyond.
The Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway will "give us a strategic presence," said NASA administrator William Gerstenmaier.
"It will drive our activity with commercial and international partners and help us explore the moon and its resources. We will ultimately translate that experience toward human missions to Mars."
According to Space.com, the Gateway will allow scientists to carry out astrophysics and fundamental physics experiments as well as human physiology and space biology studies.
NASA's 2019 budget lists the first stage of the Gateway project, its power and propulsion module, to be in space by 2022, the science website says.
The last time man landed on the surface of the Moon was with the Apollo 17 mission on Dec. 11, 1972.
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