Next space exploration step: human expeditions to Libration points.

The next step in the human space exploration is to travel beyond Low Earth Orbit and in this regard the Earth-Moon Lagrangian points represent an interesting and logical first destination. In this paper a discussion about the major aspects related to human expeditions to Librations points is reported. An orbital infrastructure deployed in cis-lunar will represent the first human outpost beyond LEO, to be firstly used as a platform for research and to demonstrate a set of critical technologies and associated operations required to perform a further deep space human exploration mission (e.g. to a NEO or to Mars). As a matter of fact, placing the module in one of the Libration points allows reproducing conditions that would be encountered during a deep space travel, thus guaranteeing the possibility to test specific technologies in a more significant environment with respect to what possible on ground or in LEO (e.g. effects of radiations on human body outside the protection of the Van Allen belts and radiation protection system test). Moreover a station located in one of the Lagrangian points can be exploited to support lunar human exploration missions, providing a staging post and a safe heaven for crew working on the Moon surface. The paper describes the mission concept for the cis-lunar destination, in terms of missions’ architectures and needed building blocks also highlighting how this destination concept can be coupled with other destinations missions, in a wider human exploration scenario. Within the paper an assessment of the required and applicable, innovative and critical technologies is reported. In particular, the mission concept is built such that it can in principle be feasible in the following few years (station deployment in 2017), but at the same time it is conceived to allow a progressive implementation of more and more innovative technologies through different successive missions (e.g. crew missions, logistics missions). The paper describes the rationale and the adopted methodologies, as well as the main obtained results.