These have been wild days for NASA’s CAPSTONE mission. Following the successful launch of the lunar satellite from the Rocket Lab site on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand, ground control lost contact with the spacecraft shortly after it escaped the gravity of the spacecraft. Land and separated on Monday from its Electron rocket carrier. But after nearly a full day in the dark, NASA announced Wednesday that its engineers have managed to reopen a 55-pound satellite line.
While the situation was worrisome, NASA had explained that possibility. “If necessary, the mission has enough fuel to delay the initial maneuver to correct the trajectory after the separation for several days,” a NASA spokesman told Space.com on Monday.
Known as the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE), this spacecraft had spent almost a week orbiting the planet in order to gain enough momentum to make it stick to a route. four-month translunar injection (TLI). to the moon. Once the CAPSTONE arrives on November 13, it will follow the planned almost rectilinear halo orbit of the next lunar entrance gate to verify road stability.
“Specifically, it will validate the power and propulsion requirements to maintain its orbit as predicted by NASA models, reducing logistical uncertainties,” NASA described in an April blog post. “The orbit will take CAPSTONE 1,000 miles from a lunar pole at its nearest step and 43,500 miles from the other pole at its maximum every seven days, requiring less propulsion capacity for spacecraft flying to and from surface of the Moon than other circular orbits “.
The Gateway, once launched in 2024, will act as a staging platform first for Artemis ’larger mission and lunar colonization efforts, then delve beyond the solar system with the goal of settling is finally on Mars. NASA plans to follow this launch with that of the Orion spacecraft, its launch window covering August 23 to September 6, which will assess the impacts that a trip can have on the physiology of astronauts.