CAPSTONE is flying a low-energy trajectory that will take it more than 1.2 million kilometers from Earth and eventually into a near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon in November 2022.
Amateur satellite observer Scott Tilley observed no X-band signals from CAPSTONE on 2022-07-05.
CAPSTONE is funded by NASA and operated by Advanced Space, a Colorado-based startup.
The CAPSTONE cubesat lost contact with Earth one day after its deployment on 2022-07-04.
CAPSTONE’s low-energy trajectory is designed to minimize propellant needed to enter lunar orbit in a maneuver scheduled for 2022-11-13.
Rocket Lab deployed CAPSTONE on its ballistic lunar transfer trajectory at 07:18 UTC on 2022-07-04.
CAPSTONE will use its own propulsion and the Sun’s gravity to navigate to the Moon on a roughly four-month journey arriving to lunar orbit on 2022-11-13.
At 300 kg (299.82 kg.) of payload mass, CAPSTONE was the heaviest payload launched to date by Rocket Lab’s Electron.
CAPSTONE was designed and built by Terran Orbital’s Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems.
Rocket Lab successfully deployed the CAPSTONE satellite for NASA into low Earth orbit on 2022-06-28.
NASA is spending about $30,000,000 on CAPSTONE across its contracts with Advanced Space and Rocket Lab.
CAPSTONE is a NASA-funded lunar cubesat that began its translunar journey on 2022-07-04 after a series of burns by a Rocket Lab transfer stage.
CAPSTONE will take more than four months to reach the moon while flying a low-energy trajectory that will take it 1.2 million kilometers from Earth.
Rocket Lab’s Lunar Photon stage released the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) cubesat at 3:18 a.m. Eastern.
Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket launched Lunar Photon and CAPSTONE on 2022-06-28, placing them into low Earth orbit.
Rocket Lab’s Electron launched NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) cubesat on 2022-06-28.
The NASA contract to develop CAPSTONE is valued at $19,980,000.
CAPSTONE will test autonomous navigation software called CAPS, the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System.
Advanced Space won a NASA contract in 2019 to develop CAPSTONE to test the stability of the NRHO.
NASA awarded a $9,950,000 contract to Rocket Lab in 2020 for the CAPSTONE launch.