NASA’s CAPSTONE satellite maneuver sends spacecraft on its way to lunar orbit

By Georgina Torbet Published July 9, 2022

NASA’s CAPSTONE satellite is on its way to orbit around the moon, following a software issue that caused it to lose contact with Earth this week. Launched on June 28, NASA announced it was having communications issues with the satellite on July 5. Communications were re-established by July 6, and now the satellite has performed its first targeting maneuver.

The satellite is testing out an unusual orbit around the moon which could be used for the planned Gateway space station. Called a near rectilinear halo orbit, this curved orbit brings the satellite close to the moon at some times while being further away than others. Its advantage is that it requires very little energy to keep an object in the orbit, making it ideal for a space station. CAPSTONE’s task is to test whether this orbit is a good potential orbit for the future station.

Illustration of the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE). Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems

To be inserted into this orbit, the satellite has to make a series of maneuvers in which it fires thrusters to adjust its trajectory. The first of these maneuvers was Thursday morning.

“NASA’s CAPSTONE successfully completed its first trajectory correction maneuver, which started at 11:30 a.m. EDT Thursday,” NASA wrote in an update. “This is the first in a series of thruster burns over the next few months to more accurately target CAPSTONE’s transfer orbit to the Moon. The maneuver lasted just over 11 minutes and changed the spacecraft’s velocity by about 45 miles per hour (about 20 meters per second). CAPSTONE’s next trajectory correction maneuver is targeted for Saturday, July 9.”

The transfer the satellite is following is different from the usual Hohmann transfer, in which an object spirals out in its orbit around the Earth until it ends up in orbit around the moon. Instead, CAPSTONE is using a ballistic transfer that follows the gravitational contours of space as affected by the Earth, the moon, and the sun. This method uses very little fuel but takes longer, so CAPSTONE will take several months to reach the moon.

CAPSTONE is scheduled to arrive at its near rectilinear halo orbit around the moon on 13 November this year.

Topics

Tech News

Georgina Torbet

Space Writer

Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…

Space

Voyager 1 spacecraft is still alive and sending signals to Earth

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is depicted in this artist’s concept traveling through interstellar space, or the space between stars, which it entered in 2012.

NASA's two Voyager spacecraft, launched in the 1970s, have passed beyond the orbit of Pluto and into interstellar space, making them the most distant man-made objects to exist in the universe. However, as you'd expect from technology that is nearly 50 years old, the pair of probes have had their share of technical difficulties in their time. But now, NASA has announced that it is back in contact with Voyager 1, around five months after communications with the spacecraft were disrupted. The remarkable pair of explorers continue out into the depths of space to fight another day.

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is depicted in this artist’s concept traveling through interstellar space, or the space between stars, which it entered in 2012. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Space

NASA needs a new approach for its challenging Mars Sample Return mission

An illustration of NASA's Sample Return Lander shows it tossing a rocket in the air like a toy from the surface of Mars.

NASA has shared an update on its beleaguered Mars Sample Return mission, admitting that its previous plan was too ambitious and announcing that it will now be looking for new ideas to make the mission happen. The idea is to send a mission to collect samples from the surface of Mars and return them to Earth for study. It's been a long-term goal of planetary science researchers, but one that is proving costly and difficult to put into practice.

The Perseverance rover has already collected and sealed a number of samples of Mars rock as it journeys around the Jezero Crater, and has left these samples in a sample cache ready to be collected. However, getting them back to Earth in the previous plan required sending a vehicle to Mars, getting it to land on the surface, sending out another rover to collect the samples and bring them back, launching a rocket from the planet's surface (something which has never been done before), and then having this rocket rendezvous with another spacecraft to carry them back to Earth. That level of complexity was just too much to be feasible within a reasonable budget, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced this week.

Space

Watch NASA begin testing its Orion capsule for lunar flyby

NASA starts testing the Orion capsule for the Artemis II mission.

NASA has started testing the Orion spacecraft that will take four astronauts on a voyage around the moon as part of the Artemis II mission currently scheduled for 2025.

The space agency shared a video (below) showing the Orion capsule being transported to an upgraded vacuum chamber inside the Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. There, it will undergo electromagnetic compatibility and interference testing.