NASA has restored communication with the CAPSTONE satellite after a brief outage
NASA’s CAPSTONE mission is progressing with mixed success. After the successful launch of the Rocket Lab Electron rocket and the launch of the satellite into space, the mission was met with failure.
After launch, CAPSTONE spent almost a week in orbit around the planet to gain enough momentum to travel to the Moon. But shortly after the satellite broke free from Earth’s gravity well, the control center lost contact with the spacecraft. It took almost a day for NASA specialists to restore communication.
Although the situation caused concern, NASA took into account the possibility of difficulties.
‘If the mission needs it, there will be enough fuel to delay the initial trajectory correction maneuver after separation for several days,’ a NASA spokesman said Monday.
Now, the 25-kilogram CAPSTONE satellite (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) is to make a 4-month flight to the Moon. It should reach its target point by November 13, and then it should enter the planned Lunar Halo Orbit (NRHO).
The main objective of the mission is to test and verify the design parameters of this orbit, which has never been used in practice before. According to calculations, in such an orbit the gravities of the Earth and the Moon are ‘balanced’, which ensures its stability with minimal fuel needs for correction. If everything goes according to plan, the satellite will spend half a year in orbit. In the future, this orbit is planned to be used to place the Gateway station as part of the Artemis project.
