Maxar's Space Systems Loral is one of several firms proposing to use a commercial satellite bus as the basis for a Power and Propulsion Element for NASA’s planned lunar Gateway.

If all goes as currently planned, sometime in 2022 a rocket will lift off carrying a payload that at first glance will look familiar. This payload, though, won’t be destined for geostationary orbit. Instead, the spacecraft will head to cislunar space.

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Jeff Foust has more than a decade of experience writing about space policy, entrepreneurial ventures and regulatory affairs. In 2001, he established spacetoday.net to aggregate and summarize the day's space-related news stories. In 2003, he started The...