Beck: CAPSTONE demonstrates feasibility of low-cost small interplanetary satellites – SpaceNews

LOGAN, Utah – Rocket Lab’s launch of a NASA lunar cubesat mission lived up to its name and served as a capstone for the company’s efforts to develop end-to-end space systems and interplanetary missions, according to its CEO.

Speaking at the Small Satellite Conference here on Aug. 8, Peter Beck said the company’s work on both small launch vehicles and spacecraft will coincide with the launch of NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) mission on Aug June 28 coincided moon.

Rocket Lab provided the launch of its Electron rocket, as well as the Lunar Photon Kick Stage, which performed a series of maneuvers to place CAPSTONE in a ballistic lunar orbit.

The mission came as Rocket Lab expanded from a purely small developer of launch vehicles into a company that also developed spacecraft and components for them, in part through a series of acquisitions. “All of that really came together when we did the CAPSTONE mission,” he said. “Not only did we need a rocket, we also needed to build a spaceship.”

The CAPSTONE mission pushed Electron to its limits. The vehicle was originally designed to deliver 150 kilograms into low Earth orbit, but the CAPSTONE and Lunar Photon weighed 320 kilograms at launch. “Every gram has been considered,” he said, including the decision not to include onboard cameras typically flown on Electron to save mass. “We really pushed this vehicle as hard as we could.”

Rocket Lab continues to operate Lunar Photon more than a month after deploying CAPSTONE. The spacecraft is currently about 1.3 million kilometers from Earth, he said, and will return to Earth later in the month.

The spacecraft has 10-15% of its propellant left. “When it flies past Earth,” Beck said, “we’re going to try to do something cool with it and see how far we can get into the solar system with it.”

This test will support Rocket Lab’s future plans for deep-space smallsat missions, including a privately funded mission to Venus and the construction of the two spacecraft for NASA’s Mars orbiter ESCAPADE mission. “We’re taking this opportunity to learn what it takes to get to Venus and other destinations,” he said.

He echoed earlier comments that the CAPSTONE mission demonstrated the feasibility of low-cost small-satellite interplanetary missions. “What we intend to do with the Lunar Photon spacecraft is to really lower the barrier for interplanetary missions,” he said. “The biggest thing that came out of that was there’s now a spaceship that you can buy for tens of millions of dollars and you can go to an asteroid, go to the moon and go to another planet. That has never happened before.”

Beck, speaking from New Zealand after an illness prevented him from attending the conference in person, touched on another important Rocket Lab initiative that created a reusable version of the Electron booster. The company attempted to catch the booster on a May 2 helicopter launch, but unexpected loads forced the helicopter to release the booster seconds after the catch.

The company has been “somewhat opportunistic” in recovery attempts, he said, depending on the requirements for each mission. “You shouldn’t have to wait long for the next salvage attempt,” he said, but didn’t get more specific.

He is confident that Rocket Lab will be able to salvage and reuse the booster soon given the progress made so far. “The biggest lesson from the last one is that it will work,” he said.