Suara.com – NASA will soon begin a human exploration mission on the Moon, by sending spacecraft the size of an oven called Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation (CAPSTONE).
CAPSTONE is scheduled to launch in October 2021 from New Zealand with the Rocket Lab Electron and Lunar Photon rocks.
Weighing only 25 kg, CAPSTONE’s main purpose is to test and verify the orbital stability calculated from the orbit of the near halo (NRHO) around the Moon.
It is the same orbit for NASA’s Lunar Gateway, the space station that will orbit the Moon to give astronauts access to the Moon’s surface.
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The Gateway is touted as a critical component of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to establish a long-term human presence on and around the Moon.
CAPSTONE is designed to help reduce future spacecraft risks, by validating navigation technology and verifying the dynamics of this halo-shaped orbit.
In this mission, CAPSTONE will orbit the area around the Moon for at least six months to understand the characteristics of its orbit.
“CAPSTONE is fully integrated and is currently undergoing integration testing and evaluation,” said Bradley Cheetham, CEO and president of Advanced Space of Westminster, the company NASA asked to develop and operate the spacecraft.
Reporting from Space.com, Thursday (26/8/2021), not only that, the technology developed for CAPSTONE has also been used for other vehicles.
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One of them is CAPSTONE’s Stellar Exploration propulsion system, successfully deployed on a commercial spacecraft and two vehicles from Rocket Lab Photons, selected for NASA’s future Mars missions.
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