The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration is looking into setting up a base near the moon to further space exploration. As it’s envisioned, the base will go into a halo orbit of the Earth-moon libration point 2, known as “EM L-2,” above the far side of the moon. Essentially, a spacecraft in a halo orbit goes around and around near a libration, or Lagrangian, point — in this case E-M L2. A Lagrangian point is a position in an orbit where a small object affected only by gravity can theoretically be stationary relative to two larger objects. There are five Earth-moon Lagrangian points.
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NASA Dreams of Floating Space Station Twixt Earth and Moon
Posted by: Richard Adhikari February 14, 2012 01:50 PMThe U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration is looking into setting up a base near the moon to further space exploration. As it’s envisioned, the base will go into a halo orbit of the Earth-moon libration point 2, known as “EM L-2,” above the far side of the moon. Essentially, a spacecraft in a halo orbit goes around and around near a libration, or Lagrangian, point — in this case E-M L2. A Lagrangian point is a position in an orbit where a small object affected only by gravity can theoretically be stationary relative to two larger objects. There are five Earth-moon Lagrangian points.