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The CAPSTONE satellite was integrated into the Rocket Lab’s Lunar Photon spacecraft before being launched into the Electron rocket. (Photo: Business Wire)
Owned and operated by Advanced Space on behalf of NASA, the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) CubeSat will be the first spacecraft to test the Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) around the Moon. This is the same orbit for NASA & Gateway Gateway & CloseCurlyQuote, a multi-purpose station in lunar orbit that will provide substantial support for long-term astronaut lunar missions as part of the Artemis program.
The orbital maneuvers come after Rocket Lab successfully launched CAPSTONE into an initial parking orbit on June 28 with an Electron rocket from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. With Electron ‘role in the mission now complete, Lunar Photon has taken the reins, providing power, communications and space transport to CAPSTONE for the next five-day phase of the mission.
These days, Lunar Photon & CloseCurlyQuote’s HyperCurie engine will perform a series of orbital maneuvers by periodically igniting to increase the speed of the Photon & CloseCurlyQuote, extending its orbit into an apparent eclipse around the Earth. Six days after launch, the HyperCurie will ignite one last time, accelerating the Photon Lunar to 24,500 mph (39,500 km / h) and putting it in a ballistic lunar transport. Within 20 minutes of this final burn, Photon will release CAPSTONE into space for the first leg of the CubeSat & CloseCurlyQuote solo flight. CAPSTONE ”s trip to NRHO is expected to take about four months from this point. With the help of the Sun’s gravity, CAPSTONE will reach a distance of 963,000 miles from Earth – more than three times the distance between Earth and the Moon – before being pulled back into the Earth-Moon system.
Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said the launch of the CAPSTONE mission was the culmination of two and a half years of work and pushed the Electron launch vehicle to its extremes. “The electron lifted its heaviest payload to 300 kilograms – the combined mass of the lunar photon and CAPSTONE. We pushed the Rutherford engines harder than ever and deployed the Lunar Photon and CAPSTONE exactly where they needed to go to start the next phase of the mission. Now the lunar photon & CloseCurlyQuote appears and we are very proud of its performance so far. We really go beyond the limits of interplanetary small satellite missions with CAPSTONE and it is exciting to think about the possibilities that open up for more cost-effective missions to Mars.
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+ About Rocket Lab
Founded in 2006, Rocket Lab is an end-to-end space company with a well-established mission success history. We provide reliable launch services, satellite construction, spacecraft components and orbital management solutions that make space access faster, easier and more accessible. Based in Long Beach, California, Rocket Lab designs and builds the Electron small orbital launch vehicle and the Photon satellite platform and develops the 8-tonne Neutron payload launch vehicle. Since its first orbital launch in January 2018, Rocket Lab & CloseCurlyQuote’s Electron launch vehicle has become the second most frequently launched rocket in the United States annually, delivering 147 orbiting satellites to private and public security organizations, nationwide scientific research and space. debris mitigation, earth observation, climate monitoring and communications. Rocket Lab & CloseCurlyQuote’s Photon spacecraft platform has been selected to support NASA missions to the Moon and Mars, as well as the first private commercial mission to Venus. Rocket Lab has three launch sites at two launch sites, including two launch sites at a private launch orbit in New Zealand and a second launch site in Virginia, USA, which is expected to be operational in 2022. To find out more, visit www. rocketlabusa.com.
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