NASA’s grand plan to take people again to the Moon for the primary time in over half a century has taken one other step ahead. The 55-pound CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) cubesat has damaged freed from Earth’s orbit and is on its option to the Moon.
Rocket Lab launched CAPSTONE on an Electron rocket from New Zealand final week. Following six days of orbit-raising burns to construct up sufficient velocity, the pathfinding satellite tv for pc set out towards the Moon. It’s a comparatively sluggish journey, although. CAPSTONE will not attain the Moon till November.
NASA will attempt to put CAPSTONE in a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit across the Moon, a feat that is by no means been tried earlier than. The company plans to make use of the identical orbit for the Gateway house station, which is able to present assist for long-term lunar missions underneath the Artemis program. The outpost could have dwelling quarters for astronauts and a lab. That mission will not launch till at the very least 2024.
Meanwhile, it emerged final week that NASA has focused a launch window of between August twenty third and September sixth for the Artemis 1 mission. It will ship an uncrewed module across the Moon to evaluate how the journey would possibly have an effect on the human physique. The company ran a profitable moist launch fueling take a look at for Artemis 1 in June.