NASA’s CAPSTONE mission, which will trace a new orbit around the Moon that is expected to be used for a future manned lunar space station, is underway after a successful launch this Tuesday morning. The Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle delivered the roughly the size of a large microwave-sized CAPSTONE satellite into Earth orbit for the first step of its lunar journey.
The Electron rocket took off from the Rocket Lab launch facility in New Zealand at 5:55 AM ET, marking Rocket Lab’s 27th flight for its launch vehicle, and the first with the Moon as its intended destination. . The satellite will remain in low Earth orbit for about six days, connected to an upper stage of Photon custom designed created by Rocket Lab for this mission, after which Photon will start its engines one last time to leave the Earth’s orbit on a path to deep space. , subsequently launching CAPSTONE to continue to reach the Moon in about three months.
The goal of the CAPSTONE mission is to use the small satellite to test a new orbit around the Moon, an elliptical path that will provide a sufficiently stable orbit to maintain a permanent base of operations for surface excursions. at the Gateway, according to NASA. The Moon’s space station, however, also offers a good launch point for deeper space exploration at its farthest point. The lunar walkway is a key ingredient for NASA’s Artemis program, which will return human astronauts to the surface of the moon.
This is Rocket Lab’s first space mission, but it won’t be its last: the company aims to deliver two orbital spacecraft to Mars also for a science mission also on behalf of NASA.