The rocket carrying the CAPSTONE satellite took off (NASA)
NASA released a small CubeSat this week for testing and orbit, which will soon be used by Gateway, a lunar space station.
All this is part of the space agency’s plan to take a woman to the moon by 2025.
The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE, mission started in New Zealand on Tuesday.
Jim Reuters, associate administrator of the Space Technology Directorate, said: “CAPSTONE is an example of how working with trading partners is key to NASA’s ambitious plans to explore the moon and beyond.
“We are excited about the successful start of the mission and look forward to what CAPSTONE will do once it arrives on the moon.”
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CAPSTONE is currently in low Earth orbit and it will take the spacecraft about four months to reach its target lunar orbit.
CAPSTONE is attached to the Moon Photon of Rocket Lab, a third-degree interplanetary planet that will send CAPSTONE on its way to deep space.
Over the next six days, Photon’s engine will periodically ignite to accelerate beyond Earth’s lower orbit, where Photon will launch CubeSat on a path to the moon.
CAPSTONE will then use its own propulsion and the Sun’s gravity to navigate the rest of the way to the moon.
The gravity-driven runway will drastically reduce the amount of fuel CubeSat needs to reach the moon.
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Bradley Chitham, CAPSTONE principal investigator and CEO of Advanced Space, “Our team is now preparing to split and initially acquire the spacecraft in six days.
“We’ve already learned a huge amount by this time, and we’re passionate about the importance of bringing people back to the moon, this time to stay!”
On the Moon, CAPSTONE will enter an elongated orbit called an almost rectilinear orbit of the halo or NRHO.
Once in the NRHO, CAPSTONE will fly within 1,000 miles of the Moon’s North Pole in its near passage and 43,500 miles from the South Pole at its farthest end.
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It will repeat the cycle every six and a half days and will maintain this orbit for at least six months to study the dynamics.
“CAPSTONE is a guide in many ways and will demonstrate several technological capabilities during its mission as it navigates into an orbit that has never flown around the moon,” said Elwood Agassid, CAPSTONE project manager at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. Silicone. the valley. “CAPSTONE lays the groundwork for Artemis, Gateway and commercial support for future lunar operations.”
NASA estimates the cost of the entire Artemis mission at $ 28 billion.
This will be the first time humans have walked on the moon since Apollo’s last mission in 1972.
Only 12 people went to the moon – all men.
NASA conducted six manned missions to the surface of the moon, beginning with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in July 1969, and to Jean Cernan and Jack Schmidt in December 1972.
The mission will use NASA’s powerful new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft.
Watch: NASA’s launch paves the way for a station in lunar orbit
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