A small NASA-funded spacecraft launched from New Zealand on Tuesday, launching the space agency’s plans to send astronauts back to the moon in a few years.
The spacecraft, called CAPSTONE, is the size of a microwave oven. He will study a specific orbit where NASA plans to build a small space station for astronauts to stop before and after the moon’s surface.
At 9:55 p.m. local time (5:55 p.m. Eastern Time), a 59-foot CAPSTONE rocket took off from a launch pad off the east coast of New Zealand. Although the mission collects information about NASA, it is owned and operated by the private company Advanced Space, based in Westminster, Colorado.
For a spacecraft aimed at the moon, CAPSTONE is cheap and costs just under $ 30 million, including a launch from Rocket Lab, a US-New Zealand company.
The first two stages of the Electron rocket placed CAPSTONE in an elliptical orbit around the Earth. For this mission, the Rocket Lab essentially added a third stage, which will methodically increase the height of the spacecraft over the next six days. At this point, CAPSTONE will be on its way to the moon, taking a slow but effective journey, arriving on November 13th.
Why is NASA launching CAPSTONE?
The full name of the mission is Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment.
For Artemis, NASA’s program to send astronauts back to the moon, NASA has decided to include a small space station around the moon. This would make it easier for astronauts to reach more parts of the moon.
This outpost must be placed in what is known as an almost rectilinear orbit of the halo.
The orbits of the halo are those influenced by the gravity of two bodies – in this case the Earth and the Moon. The influence of both bodies helps to make the orbit very stable, minimizing the amount of fuel needed to keep a spacecraft orbiting the moon.
Gravitational interactions also maintain the orbit at an angle of about 90 degrees to the Earth’s view. (This is almost the rectilinear part of the name.) Thus, a spacecraft in this orbit never passes behind the Moon, where communications would be interrupted.
The orbit that the Gateway will travel comes within about 2,200 miles of the Moon’s North Pole and orbits 44,000 miles as it passes over the South Pole. The journey around the moon will take about a week.
No spacecraft has ever traveled in this orbit. In this way, CAPSTONE will provide data to NASA to confirm its mathematical models for the operation of its Gateway outpost in an almost rectilinear orbit of the halo.
Which companies operate CAPSTONE?
NASA has not designed or built CAPSTONE, nor will it operate it. The spacecraft is owned and operated by Advanced Space, a 45-employee company just outside of Denver. Advanced Space actually bought the 55-pound satellite the size of a microwave oven from another company, Terran Orbital.
It is also launched not by SpaceX or any of NASA’s other major aerospace contractors, but by Rocket Lab, a US-New Zealand company that is a leader in delivering small payloads into orbit. The company has its own launch site on the North Island of New Zealand for its Electron missiles.
NASA has spent about $ 20 million on Advanced Space to build and operate the spacecraft, and just under $ 10 million on the Rocket Lab launch site.
What will happen during the mission?
Once on the moon, the mission will last six months, with the potential to be extended for another year or more.
The main task is to study how best to stay in the desired orbit. By measuring how long it takes for radio signals to travel back and forth to Earth, the spacecraft triangulates its position and then pushes itself off course.
This can take some trial and error, because no spacecraft has traveled in this orbit before, and without a global lunar positioning system, the uncertainty about the spacecraft’s position is greater at any given time.
CAPSTONE will also test an alternative method of finding its position by working with other spacecraft orbiting the moon. Advanced Space has been developing this technology for more than seven years and will now test the concept with CAPSTONE, sending signals back and forth with NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
What other lunar missions are ahead?
The largest launch to the moon this year is Artemis 1, the first major test flight of NASA’s systems to return astronauts to the lunar surface. As early as the end of August, NASA can launch a giant Space Launch System rocket, which will carry a capsule of the astronaut Orion. The capsule will orbit the moon and return to Earth without astronauts on board.
Also in August, South Korea may launch the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter spacecraft. The spacecraft will be the first visitor to the land of the moon and will study aspects of lunar geology with the help of various scientific tools.
Other missions expected this year are less likely to be completed. Russia has said it plans to return a robotic spacecraft to the moon for the first time since 1976. A Japanese company, ispace, also aims to transport cargo from Japan and a number of other countries to the lunar surface. Two US companies, Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic, also have similar missions undertaken by NASA to transport lunar cargo in the same way that SpaceX now launches cargo to the International Space Station.
NASA has also awarded SpaceX a major contract to build the next lunar landing craft for astronauts. Although this lander has been ready for years, in the coming months the company may try an orbital test flight of Starship, the spacecraft that will be the basis for this lander.
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