The tiny satellite, called CubeSat, is the size of a microwave oven and weighs only 55 pounds (25 kilograms), but will be the first to test a single elliptical lunar orbit. The CubeSat will act as a gateway finder, an advanced lunar orbiting site that will serve as a transit station between Earth and the Moon for astronauts.
The orbit, called an almost rectilinear halo orbit, is very elongated and provides stability for long-term missions and requires little energy to maintain it, which is exactly what the Gateway will need. The orbit exists at a balanced point in the gravity of the Moon and Earth.
The mission, called the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Operations and Technology Navigation Experiment, and known as CAPSTONE, is scheduled to leave the launch pad on Monday, June 27 at 5:50 am ET. The CubeSat will be launched aboard the Rocket Lab Electron rocket from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand.
Once launched CAPSTONE, it will reach its point of orbit in three months and then spend the next six months in orbit. The spacecraft can provide more data on the Gateway’s power and propulsion requirements.
The CubeSat orbit will take the spacecraft 1,000 miles (1,609.3 kilometers) from one lunar pole to its nearest passage and 43,500 miles (70,006.5 kilometers) from the other pole every seven days. The use of this orbit will be more energy efficient for spacecraft flying to and from the Entrance Gate, as it requires less propulsion than more circular orbits.
The miniature spacecraft will also be used to test communication capabilities with the Earth from this orbit, which has the advantage of a clear view of the Earth while providing coverage to the lunar south pole, where it is expected that the first Artemis astronauts land in 2025..
NASA’s lunar reconnaissance orbit, which has been orbiting the moon for 13 years, will provide a benchmark for CAPSTONE. The two spacecraft will communicate directly with each other, allowing ground crews to measure the distance between each and home to the exact location of CAPSTONE.
Collaboration between the two spacecraft can test CAPSTONE’s autonomous navigation software, called CAPS, or the Cislunar autonomous positioning system. If this software works as expected, it could be used by future spacecraft without relying on tracking from Earth.
“The CAPSTONE mission is a valuable precursor not only to Gateway, but also to the Orion spacecraft and the human landing system,” said Nujoud Merancy, head of the Planning Office for the exploration mission. NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. “Gateway and Orion will use CAPSTONE data to validate our model, which will be important for future mission operations and planning.”
Small satellites on large missions
The CAPSTONE mission is a quick, low-cost demonstration with the intent of helping lay the groundwork for future small spacecraft, said Christopher Baker, the executive director of the small space spacecraft technology program NASA Space Technology.
Small missions that can be assembled and launched quickly at a lower cost mean they can run the risk that larger, more expensive missions will not be able to do so.
“Often in a flight test you learn as much, if not more, from failure than from success. We can afford to take more risks, knowing that there is a probability of failure, but that we can accept that failure in order to pass to advanced capabilities, ”Baker said. “In this case, failure is an option.”
Lessons from smaller CubeSat missions can report larger missions below, and CubeSats have already been considered to more difficult destinations than Earth’s low orbit.
When NASA’s InSight landing was on its nearly seven-month trip to Mars in 2018, it wasn’t alone. Two suitcase-sized spaceships, called MarCO, followed InSight on their journey. They were the first cube satellites to fly into deep space.
During InSight’s entry, descent, and landing, MarCO satellites received and transmitted communication from the groundbreaker to let NASA know that InSight was safely on the surface of the red planet. They were nicknamed EVE and WALL-E, by the robots in the 2008 Pixar movie.
The fact that the small satellites reached Mars, flying behind InSight through space, thrilled the engineers. The CubeSats continued to fly past Mars after the InSight landing, but remained silent at the end of the year. But MarCO was an excellent test of how CubeSats can be accompanied on larger missions.
These small but powerful spacecraft will once again play a supporting role in September, when the DART mission, or the double asteroid redirection test, will deliberately crash into the moon Dimorphos as it orbits the asteroid Didymos near Earth to change the motion of the asteroid in space. .
The collision will be recorded by LICIACube, or Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids, an accompanying cube satellite provided by the Italian Space Agency. The briefcase-sized CubeSat travels to DART, which was launched in November 2021, and will be deployed from it before impact so it can record what happens. Three minutes after the impact, CubeSat will fly through Dimorphos to capture images and videos. The impact video will be rebroadcast on Earth. The Artemis I mission will also carry three CubeSats the size of a box of cereal that are making a trip into deep space. Separately, small satellites will measure hydrogen at the Moon’s south pole and map lunar water reservoirs, make a lunar flyby, and study particles and magnetic fields flowing from the sun.
More affordable missions
The CAPSTONE mission is based on NASA’s partnership with commercial companies such as Rocket Lab, Stellar Exploration, Terran Orbital Corporation and Advanced Space. The lunar mission was built through an innovative research contract for small businesses at a fixed price, in less than three years and for less than $ 30 million.
Larger missions can cost billions of dollars. The Perseverance rover, which is currently exploring on Mars, cost more than $ 2 billion and the Artemis I mission has an estimated cost of $ 4.1 billion, according to an audit by NASA’s Office of the Inspector General.
Such contracts can expand the opportunities for smaller, more affordable missions to the Moon and other destinations while creating a commercial support framework for future lunar operations, Baker said.
Baker’s hope is that small spaceship missions can increase the pace of space exploration and scientific discovery, and CAPSTONE and other CubeSats are just the beginning.
Correction: An earlier version of this story included an incorrect release date.