- Critical avionics systems for the NASA habitation module for astronauts (called HALO) are being developed, produced, and assembled in Vienna, Austria, by TTTech and Beyond Gravity Austria.
- The HALO module is manufactured in Italy and will, in February, be delivered to the USA. This is an important milestone for the Gateway and the NASA Artemis program.
- TTTech and Beyond Gravity Austria are delivering a modular product platform that offers a fault-tolerant, safety-critical data network and a computing platform.
The NASA module HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost) will soon begin its journey from Thales Alenia Space in Italy to Northrop Grumman in the USA. The European Space Agency (ESA) and Thales Alenia Space will hold a media event on February 20, 2025, from 11:00 a.m. (CET) at Thales Alenia Space in Turin to celebrate the dispatch. The delivery marks an important milestone in the NASA “Artemis” program and the development of Gateway, the first human outpost in lunar orbit. NASA Artemis aims to enable the landing of the first woman and the first person of color on the moon, as well as space exploration to Mars.
The HALO Gateway module, for which Northrop Grumman is responsible, will be a habitation and logistics outpost offering temporary living quarters for astronauts on their way to the moon. It will provide vital facilities such as life support systems and storage, as well as communication and docking capabilities.
Technology from Austria plays an important role in Gateway say Christian Fidi from TTTech and Kurt Kober from Beyond Gravity Austria: “We are excited about this milestone in the HALO program and look forward to the next steps. Our equipment that is, among others, responsible for controlling the safety-critical functions of the entire HALO module, will be delivered to the USA in the coming months and integrated into HALO in Arizona.”
TTTech and Beyond Gravity Austria are supplying the TTEthernet network and the computing platforms for HALO, but also for its sister module "Lunar I- Hab" provided by ESA, which will be built subsequently by Thales Alenia Space. TTEthernet enables real-time communication and the transmission of critical and non-critical messages on the same network. The hardware required for the Lunar Gateway is designed and manufactured in Vienna. The modular product platform offers a fault-tolerant, safety-critical data network and a computing platform.
“Technology from Austria plays an important part in today’s international human spaceflight. This shows the importance of Austrian space technology in a global context,“ explains Christian Fidi, General Manager, TTTech Aerospace, “We are, along with Thales Alenia Space and Airbus, the third big partner for the US for the first two Gateway modules.”
„Austrian technology enables astronauts secure communication on the space station. Astronauts many thousands of kilometers away from Earth have to be able to rely on solutions that provide maximum security. TTTech and Beyond Gravity can provide this with our highly reliable data network platform for space," says Kurt Kober, Managing Director of Beyond Gravity Austria and Vice President Electronic Solutions at Beyond Gravity.
