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February 2024 workshop: Breakout Session, Priorities for the Foundational Exploration Segment

Document: 05-2024-architecture-workshop-breakout-session-foundational-exploration.pdf, 7 slides, 1,522,949 bytes, from https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/, fetched 2026-10-01T18:28:03Z (sources/manifest.csv). Title slide: "Priorities for the Foundational Exploration Segment" (slide 1). No presenter or date. Footer: "2024 Moon to Mars Architecture Workshops". Listed on the Architecture Workshops page under "February 2024". Text: sources/text/docs/2024-02-05-2024-architecture-workshop-breakout-session-foundational-exploration.txt; images in sources/raw/slides/2024-02-05-2024-architecture-workshop-breakout-session-foundational-exploration/.

Rank and method. A breakout briefing, not the architecture of record (SCHEMA, "Workshop slides"), older than Rev B and Rev C. It briefs no white paper. All 7 slides were read in the text layer, and the images of the text-poor slides 3 to 7; the title card (slide 1) wasn't viewed. The text has no "Moon Base", "CUI" or "Pre-Decisional" (searched).

Summary. Picture slides that frame a discussion of the Foundational Exploration segment: six priorities, three kinds of lunar infrastructure, nine "technical advancements", and three questions for the room. Labels only; no figures, except the surface communications picture on slide 4 (ranges for WiFi, UHF and EVA). A year later the February 2025 workshop briefed 11 high-priority and 16 secondary "integrated gaps" for the segment (FE gaps deck; the comparison is the wiki's).

Slides

Slide Title (as printed) Content (images read)
1 "Priorities for the Foundational Exploration Segment" Title card
2 "Architecture Segments" The four segments and Future Segments, one line each
3 "Priorities for Foundational Exploration" Six bars with icons: "Mission Duration"; "Surface Crew Size & Duration"; "Science and Utilization"; "Mobility"; "Logistics"; "CPNT Architecture" ("Communications, Position, Navigation, and Timing")
4 "Lunar Infrastructure" Three pictures: "Surface Power" (vertical solar arrays and cable), "Surface CPNT" (a surface map, below), "Orbital Elements" (Gateway)
5 "Technical Advancements" "Conditioned Sample Return" (a lander), "Increase Down-Mass to Surface" (a Starship lander), "Maintaining Asset Health During Uncrewed Periods" (a module), "Dust (Regolith) Mitigation" (a plume simulation under a lander)
6 "Technical Advancements" "Logistics Services", "Cargo Return Services", "Surface Power Services", "Data Services", "Cooperative Extensibility" (pictures of a lander with a crane, a Gateway module, a vertical array, a dish antenna, a rover with astronauts)
7 "Key Questions" "What gaps are of interest?"; "What challenges do you see going into the Foundational Exploration segment?"; "What emerging technologies should get more attention?"

The surface communications picture (slide 4)

A surface map with traverse lines and crater names, a "Football Field for Scale", and four rings around a central point, labeled: "Reliable WiFi 100 m", "Intermittent WiFi 300 m", "UHF/SSCS 1.0 km", "EVA Range 2 km" (read from the image). The slide doesn't say what site the map shows or what "SSCS" stands for.

The 1.0 km UHF range is the figure Rev C's #0103 gives as the state of the art ("UHF systems from Shuttle that can support audio for a maximum of 5 users over a distance of 1.0 km"), and #0103's target is 25–50 Mbps "within 10 km" (#0103; the comparison is the wiki's). The completed task LD-103 adopted "Space-to-Space Communications Systems, WiFi 6, and 3GPP (5G)" in 2025 (Key definition tasks); reading "SSCS" as Space-to-Space Communications Systems would be the wiki's guess, and it doesn't make it.

What changed by Rev C

These comparisons are the wiki's.

  • The six priorities are now sections of the segment. Rev C's Foundational Exploration lists ten areas of future work and 32 technology gaps (Foundational Exploration). Surface crew size and duration were set as legacy decisions (up to four crew, up to 33 days; Key definition tasks).
  • "Increase Down-Mass to Surface": the Human-Class Delivery Lander was added in 2023 and the Lunar Surface Cargo Lander in Rev B (Elements); the slide ties the advancement to neither.
  • "Dust (Regolith) Mitigation" is Rev C's top-rated gap, #0801; "Maintaining Asset Health During Uncrewed Periods" is close to #0303's dormancy and #0301's extended shadow (subjects matched by the wiki).
  • The "Services" on slide 6: the slide's phrases are not in Rev C's text (searched), except "Gateway Logistics Services", the contract behind the Gateway Logistics Element (p. 52). Rev C's RT-9 discusses buying rather than building (RT-9).

Foundational Exploration · FE gaps deck, February 2025 · Technology and infrastructure breakout, February 2024 · Overview and Updates, February 2024 · #0103