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BOULDER, Colorado – A high-tech pioneer of the Gateway, the lunar-orbiting outpost that is part of NASA’s Artemis manned lunar exploration program, is preparing for departure early next year.
NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Navigation and Technological Operations Experiment – fortunately named CORNERSTONE Short for space agency, it is destined to be the first spacecraft to operate in a near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) around the moon.
NRHO is the special orbit in which the Gateway mini space station must be assembled and operated.
CAPSTONE is a microwave oven cubesat which weighs just 55 pounds (25 kilograms). But she has a great job to do.
Related: What is NASA’s Artemis program?
Place in space
During its six-month-long core mission, CAPSTONE will demonstrate for the first time how to enter and operate NRHO, as well as test a new navigation capability.
Although modelers on the ground have studied that orbit, to date no spacecraft has maneuvered to date. CAPSTONE can measure what it takes to get into NRHO, maintain that orbit, and even leave that location.
The seven-day orbit will take CAPSTONE within 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) of a lunar pole at the nearest cubesat pass and as far as 43,500 miles (70,000 km) from the other pole at its most distant point.
CAPSTONE will also use an onboard communications system to find out how far the cubesat is from NASA. Lunar reconnaissance orbiter (LRO), which has been circling the Moon since 2009. Such work will help future missions identify their place in space without having to rely solely on tracking assets on Earth, NASA officials. said in a statement last July.
Business partners
(Image credit: NASA / Rocket Lab / Advanced Space)
CAPSTONE’s effort involves a combination of business partners to manage, assemble, test and fly the mission.
Advanced Space of Boulder, Colorado, is under development and will operate CAPSTONE. Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems of Irvine, California, is building the cubesat platform. Stellar Exploration, Inc. of San Luis Obispo, California, is providing the propulsion system that the spacecraft will use during the transfer to Moon after separation, for maintenance in the NRHO and for disposal at the end of its useful life.
And Rocket Lab’s Electron launcher will hurl CAPSTONE toward the moon, placing it in a translunar injection line. Rocket Lab’s Photon satellite bus will continue to send the cubesat on its way when the Electron’s job is done.
The moon lift-off mission early next year will take place at Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 2 at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia.
Related: Rocket Lab and its electron amplifier (photos)
Keep the momentum
NASA gave the green light to develop and operate CAPSTONE in September 2019.
“It is noteworthy that the CAPSTONE program itself is just over a year old, and we are actively integrating a spacecraft that will launch early next year,” said Bradley Cheetham, CEO and President of Advanced Space.
“While it’s easy to talk about tech development, hardware cutting, and thruster testing,” Cheetham added, “I’d say one of the most notable things about the show so far has been the equipment.”
“Things with CAPSTONE are going very well, all things considered,” Cheetham told Space.com. “We set ourselves a very ambitious development timeline from the start of this program and have been working hard to maintain our momentum through expected and unexpected roadblocks over the past few months.”
Cheetham said moving CAPSTONE forward meant facing technical challenges. That was to be expected. But he and his team had no idea that they would need to operate during a global pandemic. “That certainly has complicated almost everything that we are working on.”
Overcoming obstacles
About a month of programming has been missed due to coronavirus pandemic, “But the CAPSTONE mission is still moving ahead with the appropriate precautions in place,” said Christopher Baker of NASA, executive of the small spacecraft technology program within the space agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
Baker told Space.com that CAPSTONE is a NASA-funded fast lunar mission that is commercially designed, built and operated. The spacecraft project challenges some of the assumptions made in the coordination and approval processes about space missions and how long they take to develop, he said.
“Overcoming these hurdles helps instill new business practices that will allow NASA to become even more of a customer to many in space,” Baker said. “This not only helps us expand the sphere of human influence and knowledge deeper into space, it also allows NASA to keep waiting. Mars and beyond.”
As for the mission itself, Baker said new updates have been made, including the addition of a chip-scale atomic clock and some radio and software enhancements to boost CAPSTONE’s autonomous navigation capabilities.
Foundations for the future
However, Cheetham of Advanced Space said the key is that the team is making progress and laying the groundwork for future missions. “We are pushing ourselves and lobbying numerous government processes that are unfamiliar with the speed with which we are moving forward.”
CAPSTONE is an opportunity to demonstrate what is possible in terms of flight and rapid mission development, Cheetham said. “We want to develop urgently so that we can learn quickly, iterate, improve and demonstrate.”
“As we work through the challenges of this program, I often remind our team of something I learned from a New York firefighter several years ago: ‘Pressure makes diamonds,'” Cheetham said. “And in the case of CAPSTONE, I think we are seeing the truth in that proverb thanks to the ability of our team to rise to the occasion.”
Leonard David is the author of the recently published book, “Moon Rush: The New Space Race” published by National Geographic in May 2019. David, a longtime writer for Space.com, has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. This version of the story posted on Space.com.
