The CAPSTONE craft is on its way to the moon.
The cubesat was launched from the company's Launch Complex 1 on the Mhia Peninsula of New Zealand. The time in New Zealand is 9:55pm.
Bradley Smith, NASA's director for launch services office, was on hand for the launch.
NASA plans to use the moon as a testing ground for its Gateway space outpost, which will be located in the middle of the ocean. It will be a while before CAPSTONE gets there.
No cubesat has gone before NASA's CAPSTONE moon mission.
The first image of two.
NASA's CAPSTONE cubesat will be launched from New Zealand on June 28, 2022. The image was taken by NASA TV.
The liftoff took place at 5:55 a.m. After a long time of delays. The image was taken by NASA TV.
The Apollo missions traveled to the moon in a few days. The most powerful booster ever to fly was used to launch those spaceships.
Our planet was left aboard the Electron, which is designed to send small satellites to Earth. The scenic route is being taken by CAPSTONE.
The two-stage Electron's upper stage was used to integrate CAPSTONE into. After nine minutes after the launch, CAPSTONE and Photon separated from the upper stage into Earth's lower atmosphere.
It was a perfect electron launch. Peter Beck wrote in an update on the social networking site. The lunar photon is located in a low earth area.
The next five days will see a series of engine burns to increase the altitude of Photon. After six days after launch, Photon will perform one final burn, which will increase its speed to 24,500 mph, which will allow it to escape Earth and head for the moon. Rocket Lab representatives wrote in a mission press kit that CAPSTONE would be deployed within 20 minutes.
Over the next few months, CAPSTONE will use its own thrusters to keep it on a low-energy trajectory towards the moon. The path of the cubesat will take it as far away as 810,000 miles from Earth.
CAPSTONE will be inserted into a near rectilinear halo around the moon on November 13th. Advanced Space leads the $30 million mission for NASA.
No cubesat has gone before NASA's CAPSTONE moon mission.
CAPSTONE will be within 1,000 miles of one lunar pole and 43,500 miles from the other pole on its closest pass.
Spacecraft shouldn't have to burn a lot of fuel because of the balance between the moon and Earth. This is one of the reasons that NASA has chosen it for the Gateway space station, a key part of the Artemis program of lunar exploration. Gateway will be a jumping off point for sorties, both crewed and uncrewed. The core elements of the small moon-orbiting outpost are planned to be launched by NASA.
No spacecraft has ever been to the moon so assumptions about its stability are correct. CAPSTONE is here to help. It will take at least six months for the cubesat to be assessed.
Nujoud Merancy, NASA's chief of the exploration mission planning office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a video that the reason they're in this area is because it's stable and close to the moon.
Merancy said that CAPSTONE can demonstrate the navigation, the guidance, the propulsive capability, and we can really just extract from that the math to confirm the orbits for Gateway, Orion and Artemis.
The CAPSTONE mission will demonstrate innovative navigation solutions, including spacecraft-to-spacecraft navigation and one-way ranging capabilities with Earth ground stations.
The tests will be done in conjunction with NASA's lunar exploration program.
It was the first deep-space mission for Rocket Lab. The California-based company aims to launch at least one life-hunting mission to Venus using electron and photon in the next few years.
There are other ways in which CAPSTONE is paving the way for private spaceflight. Advanced Space won a $20 million NASA contract to operate and develop the mission.
Commercial outfits are also involved. The CAPSTONE cubesat was built by two California companies. The mission was sent to the moon by rocket lab.
The liftoff was delayed multiple times for systems checks and other testing.
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