NASA successfully launched a satellite on Tuesday CubeSatdesigned to test a lunar orbit singular path along which the orbital platform will move in the future Gateway. It will be a multipurpose outpost that will provide essential support for astronaut missions to the Moon as part of the international program Artemis led by the US space agency.
The satellite and the current mission, called CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment), took off in an electron rocket from rocket lab of the facilities that this company has in New Zealand.
This microwave-sized CubeSat is currently in low Earth orbit and will take a few four months to reach lunar orbit for which it was designed.
“We are very pleased with the successful start of the mission and look forward to what CAPSTONE will do when it lands on the Moon,” he commented. Jim Reutersassociate administrator of the Space Technology Mission Directorate.
The stages of the journey
This experiment is linked to Lunar Photon of the Rocket Lab, a third stage of the rocket that will send the vehicle towards our natural satellite. Twenty minutes after launch, it separated from the electron launcher’s second stage.
Over the next six days, Photon’s engine will fire periodically to accelerate it beyond low Earth orbit, where Photon will launch the CubeSat on a ballistic lunar transfer trajectory to the Moon. It will take about four months for the spacecraft to reach its target orbit.
The CubeSat will travel a great distance through deep space on its journey from Earth to the Moon. Aided by the Sun’s gravity, it will reach a distance of 1,550,000 kilometers from Earth – more than three times the distance between our planet and the satellite – before being pulled back into the Earth-Moon system.
This winding road called moon ballistic transfer (BLT), follows dynamic gravitational contours in deep space. The CAPSTONE team will calculate the trajectory of the BLT based on the ever-changing positions of the Earth, Moon and Sun.
“We have already learned a lot to get to this point and we are passionate about the importance of humans returning to the Moon, this time to stay!” Bradley Cheethammission principal investigator.
On the Moon, CAPSTONE will enter an elongated orbit called nearly rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO). This provides stability that translates into energy efficiency for the Gateway’s lifetime of at least 15 years in orbit around the Moon.
Once at NRHO, the CubeSat will fly about 1,600 kilometers from the lunar north pole at its closest pass and 70,000 kilometers south at its furthest point. It will then repeat this cycle every six and a half days and remain operational for at least six months to study the dynamics.
CAPSTONE is launched aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula. /Rocket Lab
The technology employed could allow future spacecraft to determine their position in space without relying solely on earth tracking. CAPSTONE also has a new precision unidirectional range feature built into its radio that can reduce the amount of terrestrial network time required for operations in space.
“It is a pioneer in many ways and will demonstrate various technological capabilities during the period of its mission as it sails in a never-before flown orbit around the Moon,” he says. Elwood Agasid, project manager at NASA Ames Research Center. “It is laying the groundwork for Artemis, Gateway and commercial support for future lunar operations,” she emphasized.