NASA Launches CAPSTONE Space Mission to Moon
Recently the US space agency NASA has launched the CAPSTONE Spacecraft. This spacecraft will orbit the moon. The spacecraft was launched from the east coast of New Zealand. It is funded by NASA. It was launched by Rocket Lab, a US-New Zealand company, a pioneer in delivering small payloads into orbit.
▪️ CAPSTONE Spacecraft
The full form of the CAPSTONE Mission is Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment. It is a microwave oven sized CubeSat that weighs just 55 pounds and measures 59 feet in
length. It is owned and operated by Advanced Space, a private company based in Westminster, Colorado. The CAPSTONE cost less than $30 million.
It will orbit around the Moon for six months and test the stability of the pre-orbit using NASA's Lunar Gateway. Actually, NASA is planning to build a small space station for astronauts to stay on the surface of the Moon. This mission will study that specific orbit for this. This will make it easier for astronauts to reach more parts of the Moon.
Its main function is to figure out how to stay in the desired orbit. CAPSTONE will also test an alternative way of finding its position by working with other spacecraft orbiting the Moon. Significantly, it took more than seven years to develop this technology by Advanced Space. CAPSTONE will provide NASA with data to confirm mathematical models for operating its Gateway outpost in near-rectilinear halo orbit.
Let us tell you that no spacecraft has ever traveled in this orbit. One trip around the Moon would take about a week.