NASA’s CAPSTONE mission has successfully launched on Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket at 5.55 AM EDT (3.25 PM IST) on June 28. The space agency had livestreamed the event and you can watch a recorded version at the link below. The spacecraft successfully went past max q (when it faces maximum structural load), staging, fairing separation, battery jettison and kick stage separation to reach its first orbital phase on its journey to the Moon.
The CAPSTONE mission will carry a dedicated payload flight computer and radio that will perform calculations to determine where the CubeSat is in its orbital path. The CubeSat satellite will use NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) as a reference point to understand its position in space. CAPSTONE will communicate directly with LRO and utilise the data from this crosslink to measure how far it is from LRO and how fast the distance between the two changes. This will tell the CubeSat its position in space relative to LRO.
During the mission, this information will be used to evaluate CAPS (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System), CAPSTONE’s autonomous navigation software. If tested successfully, the software will allow future spacecraft to determine their location without having to rely exclusively on Earth-based tracking.
If this software becomes viable, future space missions could perform without support from the ground. This would allow Earth-based antennae to prioritise important science data over routine operational tracking.
- The company’s Electron rocket carried a special-version of its Photon satellite platform, which itself is carrying the microwave oven-sized CAPSTONE spacecraft.
- With a price tag just shy of $30 million, NASA hopes the mission will verify that a specific type of moon orbit is suitable for a space station that the agency aims to launch later this decade.
Rocket Lab a small spacecraft bound for the moon from its New Zealand facility early Tuesday, a mission that represents firsts for both the company and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
CAPSTONE, an acronym for “Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment,” is a low-cost mission that represents the first launch under NASA’s lunar Artemis program.
With a price tag just shy of $30 million, NASA hopes the mission will verify that a specific type of moon orbit is suitable for the lunar Gateway space station that the agency aims to launch later this decade.
Gateway’s success does not depend on this data, NASA’s Christopher Baker, executive of the small spacecraft technology program, explained to CNBC before the launch. But, he added, CAPSTONE allows the agency to ground its orbital calculations “in actual data” and give “operational experience in the near-rectilinear Halo orbit.”
Currently in orbit around the Earth, Photon will next fire its engine multiple times over the coming days, before sending the CAPSTONE spacecraft on a trajectory that will take about four months to reach the moon. Once there, CAPSTONE will stay in orbit around the moon for at least six months to collect data.
“We’re very interested in how we can support and leverage U.S. commercial capabilities to advance what is capable – and one of the things we’ve really been pushing for over the years has been how we extend the reach of small spacecraft beyond low Earth orbit to challenging new destinations,” Baker added.
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