How to sustain the deep space gateway with reusable high-power electric platforms

The future Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOP-G) will become a key on-orbit infrastructure for the future human space exploration scenarios. This paper aims at designing and sizing reusable transportation systems aimed at supporting the activities of the future station, making benefit of the latest high-power electric propulsion technologies, currently under development. Starting from an in-depth investigation of latest technological advancements of the 20kW-class Hall Effect thrusters, two mission scenarios supporting the LOP-G with resources coming both from Earth and from the Moon are investigated. The results of the design and sizing of the two reusable platforms and related electric propulsion subsystems is reported and the results compared to envisage a common competitive architecture able to satisfy multiple activities in support to the LOP-G.