How like a star you rose upon my life,
Shedding fair radiance o’er my darkened hour!
At your uprise swift fled the turbid strife
Of grief and fear,—so mighty was your power!
And I must weep that you now disappear,
Casting eclipse upon my cheerless night—
My heaven deserting for another sphere,
Shedding elsewhere your aye-regretted light.
An Hesperus no more to gild my eve,
You glad the morning of another heart;
And my fond soul must mutely learn to grieve,
While thus from every joy it swells apart.
Yet I may worship still those gentle beams,
Though not on me they shed their silver rain;
And thought of you may linger in my dreams,
And Memory pour balm upon my pain.
Stanzas [How like a star you rose upon my life,], Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
The lunar Gateway will be the first international space station around the Moon and will support the most distant human space missions ever attempted. The lunar outpost is being assembled for operation around the Moon, providing a place to live and work in lunar orbit. Whereas the International Space Station orbits Earth, the Gateway will orbit the Moon, acting as a base for scientific research of the deep space environment, a host for technology development and demonstration experiments, as well as a staging post supporting exploration missions to the lunar surface and beyond.
In addition to payloads that will fly to this new space station, ESA is contributing three key elements to the Gateway: Lunar I-Hab, Lunar View and Lunar Link. Together, these provide a habitable space for astronauts, refuelling, storage and telecommunication capabilities, and windows to view space and the Moon. The Gateway will be assembled this decade, built as part of the Artemis programme in an international collaboration between ESA, NASA and the space agencies of Canada (CSA), Japan (JAXA) and the United Arab Emirates (MBRSC).
Credits: ESA–A. Brancaccio
