The US and Russia are going to team up for a space station near the Moon that will provide a starting point for future deep space exploration. NASA and Roscosmos, the respective space agencies, said they had signed an agreement on the “deep space gateway”, which for now is still in the planning stages. The idea of the deep space gateway is to provide a place where astronauts can test the systems needed to go into deep space, including trips to Mars. "While the deep space gateway is still in concept formulation, NASA is pleased to see growing international interest in moving into cislunar space as the next step for advancing human space exploration," said Robert Lightfoot, NASA's acting administrator at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Talks are already ongoing with European, Japanese and Canadian space agencies as well, which have all worked with NASA and Roscosmos on the International Space Station (ISS).

Source: Forbes September 28, 2017 09:45 UTC