Redwire and the power that’ll fuel NASA’s Gateway Lunar Space Station

In two years, there could be a space station orbiting the moon. NASA’s Gateway Lunar Space Station, set to launch as early as 2027, will support the Artemis IV and V moon missions and, eventually, be a jumping-off point for missions to Mars. And maybe, one day, a colony.

But before any of that can happen, the Gateway will need a power source—a powerful one, at that. The challenge is getting that energy supply into orbit the way anything reaches space: in the nose cone of a rocket.

Gateway’s power will come from a pair of blankets of photovoltaic cells, known as Roll-Out Solar Arrays (ROSAs). Each is roughly the size of a football end zone, and together they’ll provide 60 kilowatts for 24 hours a day—enough energy to power roughly 50 American homes. But to minimize their profile on the trip out of Earth’s atmosphere, the arrays will be launched in a rolled-up state, a pair of sci-fi rugs bound for lunar orbit. The Gateway’s ROSAs are built by space company Redwire, using tech initially developed by its subsidiary Deployable Space Solutions.

“When the arrays get to the Gateway, they’ll be attached [to the station] and then roll out,” says Mike Gold, a NASA veteran and Redwire’s president of civil and international space business. The unrolling process doesn’t require an electric motor: A flexible boom simply guides the arrays as they unspool. After successfully testing the panels’ roll-out capabilities in July, Redwire is handing them off for prelaunch testing to space tech company Lanteris (formerly Maxar), which is building the Gateway’s power and propulsion element.