The tired spaceship went quiet and spun out of control as the power went out.
Engineers were reluctant to sound the alarm for the moon mission. NASA gave special permission to the team to use the Deep Space Network, a system of three enormous radio dishes on Earth, to place a 1-million-mile long-distance call to the small craft. It was their final chance.
The spaceship started talking again after connecting with a football field-sized antenna. It was clear in so many data points that it wouldn't be long for me now.
JeffParker of Advanced Space said without power, "geez, I even get teary up about it." The craft was not running without power.
"Without power, the spacecraft was freezing."
The story of the first true mission of Artemis, NASA's new moon program, and how it crawled back from the edge of death, only to survive and achieve an unprecedented feat two months later, is not well known.
The maiden voyage of a new passenger spaceship from the same Florida coastline where Apollo astronauts went to the moon was not Artemis I. The one that took off four months earlier was on a headland in the southwestern Pacific, where pastured sheep and cattle would occasionally raise their snouts to see a rocket fly.
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A lunar mission with a tiny spaceship that goes by the same name was launched on a rocket from New Zealand.
The purpose of the mission was to scout an elliptical path around the moon. The path is crucial to NASA's plan to put a crewed space station on the moon. The gateway would be a base for astronauts to go back and forth to the moon.
This little ship is not owned or operated by NASA. The agency chose to work with private companies to get to the launch pad quicker. It was built by Terran Orbital and shot into space by Rocket Lab. The project cost $30 million and was a pittance compared to the $4 billion spent on Artemis I.
The trail looks like a necklace hanging from the moon, and it was built to blaze. Imagine a close hug where the necklace would clasp, about 1000 miles above the lunar surface, then a deep 40,000-mile scoop away from the moon's bottom. It's like getting a lunar gravity boost once a week. All of the time, any spaceship on the route would always face Earth.
"That's a new maneuver that we have to do that we haven't done before," said NASA administrator Bill Nelson to reporters. Apollo was in the middle of the equator. This one is going into the far side of the planet.
The best fit for a future space station was decided upon by scientists. A low-lunar would be very close to the moon. It would take more fuel to counteract the moon's gravity. It would be less convenient to access the ground if a distant retrograde was used. The Goldilocks solution is the one Gateway proposes.
Capstone lifted off on a privately owned rocket on June 28, 2022. Credit: Rocket Lab
Before a bigger spaceship carrying humans arrives, Capstone is going to look for any bumps on the trail.
Is it better to fly this Gateway with only paper studies or is it better to fly it with a proven ability? "How about rhetorically?"
Capstone launched aboard a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from Mahia, New Zealand, on June 28, 2022. Credit: Rocket Lab
For two months, it was barely noticeable. It traveled a scenic route in order to save fuel and it took four months to reach the moon.
Something happened after a course correction.
There are navigation errors on any space voyage. A person in a car and a person in a spaceship. One of the engines wouldn't stop burning when it was supposed to.
It only took an instant for a fault protection system to shut down the entire system. The extra thrust sent the spaceship rolling.
With no end in sight, Capstone spun fast.
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A tiny piece of debris may have gotten trapped in a valve and prevented it from closing.
The ship's solar panels were only pointed in the right direction during each rotation. There wasn't enough power to replenish the batteries. Mission engineers watched their craft slip into and out of consciousness over and over.
Take a turn. It's time to call home. Stop. It's time to replenish. Take a turn. It's time to call home. Stop. It's time to replenish.
They didn't have enough time to collect useful information after seeing the signal.
"We couldn't communicate with it because we couldn't afford it," saidParker, who admits to his affection for the box. He is an operations manager for the CAPSTONE mission.
The Capstone spacecraft is only 55 pounds and looks like a winged microwave oven. Credit: NASA / Dominic Hart
It was like a mother's despair when the Deep Space Network learned of the vitals of the spaceship. The temperature was minus 7 degrees. The tank was cold. He was afraid that the game was over.
"You give them a name and sometimes even a gender, and then you get attached to them," he said.
"They're robots, but, you know, you give them a name and sometimes even a gender and then you start to get attached to them."
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Without a lot of options, the team turned off all of its systems so it wouldn't use as much power.
They waited for it to sleep.
Mission controllers tried to wake it up by flipping on a single heater. They began to believe they could turn on another heater. They gradually warmed to a normal temperature.
The stuck valve was being cleared. Engineers issued repeated, stern commands, hoping they could jiggle the clog open. It's close. The doors are open. It's close.
They actually caused the ship to spin by flicking it on and off.
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They were going to have to learn to live with a thruster that wouldn't stop firing if the system wasn't working. They were able to work with the handicap. A guidance and navigation team built a new controller for the spaceship using its data and computer simulations, if one of the thrusters was never going to stop, they would strategically fire a couple of other thrusters at the same time to overwhelm it.
The controller was going to be tested on the real thing. Advanced Space carried out the recovery operation. The death spiral was over after a month.
"Would you fly this multibillion-dollar Gateway in a unique orbit with only paper studies, or would you feel more comfortable if a spacecraft has already demonstrated that you can do it?"
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Just before NASA's mega moon rocket blasted Orion into the sky, Capstone reached its unique orbit, making it the only one of its kind in the world. It will stay for up to 1.5 years and gather data for NASA, as well as test some new onboard devices. It is possible to help spaceships at the moon find their positions without relying on the Deep Space Network.
After the little spaceship is done with its primary mission, it could either stay at the moon and continue navigation experiments or retire and see the world. This is not the case in this case.
Who knows, that's a question. It is possible to visit an asteroid.
The spaceship's life was cut short by its brush with death, but many of its mothers believe its best years are still to come.
When you learn that you're flying a frozen-solid spacecraft, and it's spinning out of control, you still hold out hope, even in the dark.
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