The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) becomes successful in reestablishing its contact with CAPSTONE, the small satellite it launched into space for exploring a unique orbit around the moon.
MISSION UPDATE: Communications are back!
Operators have successfully re-established contact with our #CAPSTONE spacecraft. Additional updates to come on the #Artemis blog: https://t.co/0MWN3zET6D pic.twitter.com/Ld5ubwDlng
— NASA Ames (@NASAAmes) July 6, 2022
CAPSTONE’s communications with NASA got disconnected after the spacecraft’s successful July 4 deployment from the Rocket Lab Lunar Photon. At 9:26 am, July 6, it reestablished its contact with the satellite and concluded CAPSTONE remains in good health and on the right path to the Moon.
The CAPSTONE mission is an initiative towards advancing NASA’s Artemis program, that will culminate with NASA landing the first woman and first person of colour on the Moon.
CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) aims to test different technologies in a lunar orbit called a “Near rectilinear halo orbit”(NHRO).
NASA in the future looks forward to this particular orbit as a path for Gateway– a space station providing support for the Artemis mission and also for deep space exploration.
“CAPSTONE’s journey to the lunar orbit should take about four months. The satellite launched from Earth on June 28 aboard a Rocket Lab rocket. Now that CAPSTONE is fully detached from the rocket, it will use its own propulsion and the Sun’s gravity to navigate the rest of the way,” a source as per ZDNet.
