NASA's CAPSTONE Mission Launches To the Moon

A small NASA-financed spacecraft launched from New Zealand on Tuesday, kicking off the space agency's plans to send astronauts back to the moon in a few years. From a report: The spacecraft, called CAPSTONE, is about the size of a microwave oven. It will study a specific orbit where NASA plans to build a small space station for astronauts to stop at before and after going to the moon's surface. At 9:55 p.m. local time (5:55 a.m. Eastern time), a 59-foot-tall rocket carrying CAPSTONE lifted off from a launchpad along the eastern coast of New Zealand. Although the mission is gathering information for NASA, it is owned and operated by a private company, Advanced Space, based in Westminster, Colo.

For a spacecraft headed to the moon, CAPSTONE is inexpensive, costing just under $30 million including the launch by Rocket Lab, a U.S.-New Zealand company. The first two stages of Electron rocket placed CAPSTONE into an elliptical orbit around Earth. For this mission, Rocket Lab essentially added a third stage that will methodically raise the altitude of the spacecraft over the next six days. At that point, CAPSTONE will head on its way to the moon, taking a slow but efficient path, arriving on Nov. 13.

hmmm I've been better descriptions

[iggymanz]

CAPSTONE will test and verify the calculated orbital stability planned for the Gateway space station. The spacecraft is a 12-unit CubeSat that will also test a navigation system that will measure its position relative to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) without relying on ground stations. -- wikipedia

Re:

[necro81]

Agreed. The NYTimes article linked to in the summary was really just a minor update reporting that the mission had launched successfully. This NYT article from 26 June [nytimes.com] is more informative. Space.com [space.com] also has a pretty informative overview of the mission.

Finally!

[nospam007]

"where NASA plans to build a small space station for astronauts to stop at before and after going to the moon's surface."

Finally!
Roger Wilco needs a janitor job.

A correction

[ukoda]

Rocket Labs is not a "U.S.-New Zealand" company, it is a "New Zealand-U.S.". It started as a New Zealand based company that has expanded operations into the US. Common guys, we have enough with Aussies claim credit for famous Kiwis, the US doesn't need to do that too. You already have NASA and Space X do you really need to make sound like Rocket Labs was a US creation too?

Why the grumble? Sending something the moon is something only a small number of countries have done so it irks a bit when reporting phrases it as if it was a US lead achievement, not Kiwi innovation.

Re:

[ukoda]

Anonymous Coward.

Sad.

Re:

[CaptQuark]

Rocket Lab is a Kiwi innovation and began in NZ, but it is currently more appropriate to describe the company as a U.S.-New Zealand company as the company re-registered in the U.S. to pursue more contracts from the U.S. space program. The phrasing in the NY Times reflects the company's current registration.

Around 2013, the company moved its registration from New Zealand to the United States, and opened headquarters in Huntington Beach, California. The move coincided with the company receiving funding from American sources, and was in part due to increased U.S. government customership in the company. In 2020, Rocket Lab moved its headquarters to Long Beach, California.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

This was a business decision by Rocket Labs and does not take away from the company's origins in NZ.

normally...

[argStyopa]

...the NYT has pretty good graphic expansions but that is the worst diagram of an orbit and scale that I've seen in a while.