CAPSTONE on target to reach lunar orbit after bumpy voyage

NASA’s CAPSTONE performed its fourth of six planned trajectory correction maneuvers on Thursday, October 27, setting the stage for the spacecraft’s arrival in an elliptical halo lunar orbit in less than two weeks.

The 55-pound Cubesat fired its propulsion system for 220 seconds during the planned maneuver, Advanced Space, the private company managing the mission for NASA, explained in a statement To update. The mission’s fourth trajectory correction maneuver took place late last week, bringing CAPSTONE ever closer to its final destination: the lunar Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO). The probe is expected to reach its operational orbit on November 13th.

According to Advanced Space, the probe was 308,076 miles (495,800 kilometers) from Earth at the time of the maneuver, or about 69,000 miles (111,000 km) behind the moon. NASA and its partners use the ballistic lunar transfer (BLT) technique for transferring CAPSTONE to NRHO which, although convoluted and long, is very fuel efficient. The spacecraft was launched on June 28 and has been flying alone in space for four months.

Once the $33 million CubeSat arrives at NRHO, it will break new ground, as no spacecraft has ever operated in this highly elliptical orbit — one destined for the future Goal space station. CAPSTONE, short for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, will test this orbit for NASA, setting the stage for Gateway and those to come Artemis Missions to the moon.

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The recent trajectory correction maneuver “validates the preparation, extensive analysis, team collaboration and continued hard work in order for this mission to remain successful, especially after the recent anomaly,” said Alec Forsman, operations manager for the CAPSTONE mission at Advanced Space, in the update .

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In fact, the Mission threatened to run sideways after the third course correction on September 8th. CAPSTONE, built by Terran Orbital, lost control of the Axis and began to tumble, a serious situation that threatened to derail the entire mission. CAPSTONE was unable to point its solar panels towards the sun and was unable to fully charge.

The recovery team eventually traced the problem to a partially open valve on one of the spacecraft’s eight engines, which the team identified with a recovery sequence transmitted to CAPSTONE a full month after the anomaly. Ais NASA adds: “The mission team will design future maneuvers to bypass the affected valve, including the two remaining trajectory correction maneuvers planned prior to CAPSTONE’s arrival in lunar orbit.”

With the fourth trajectory correction maneuver complete, CAPSTONE is just days away from reaching its lunar orbit and entering the demonstration phase of the mission. The probe will spend at least six months collecting operational data and testing autonomous spacecraft-to-spacecraft navigation capabilities, the latter of which could eventually result in spacecraft being able to determine their own locations in space unaided. An early successful test, in which NASA’s Deep Space Network enabled conversation between CAPSTONE and the agency’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, is a promising start for the demonstration of what Advanced Space calls the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System.

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