Rocket Lab Moon Mission for NASA a Success - Seite 2

With Rocket Lab’s role in the mission now complete, CAPSTONE’s solo journey to the Moon has begun. CAPSTONE will use its own propulsion and the Sun’s gravity to navigate the rest of the way to the Moon, a four-month journey that will have CAPSTONE arriving to its lunar orbit on November 13, 2022. The gravity-driven track will dramatically reduce the amount of fuel the CubeSat needs to get to the Moon. Advanced Space and Terran Orbital will manage the operation of the CAPSTONE satellite for the duration of its orbital lifespan.

The CAPSTONE mission was Rocket Lab’s 27^th Electron launch overall, but it featured several significant technological firsts for the Company, including:

• First deep space mission.
• First use of Lunar Photon, a high energy variant of the Rocket Lab-designed and built Photon spacecraft. Rocket Lab previously launched and continues to operate two low Earth orbit variants of the Photon spacecraft.
• First collaborative mission between Rocket Lab and Advanced Solutions Inc, a Colorado-based flight-software company acquired by Rocket Lab in late 2021.
• First time using the FR-lite satellite radio which Rocket Lab has an exclusive license agreement with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to manufacture.
• First mission where Electron’s second stage deorbited the same day as launch.
• First mission planning and executing lunar trajectories.
• At 300 kg (661 lbs) of payload mass, the mission was Electron’s heaviest lift to date.

CAPSTONE was the first in a series of interplanetary missions for Rocket Lab’s Photon spacecraft, including the ESCAPADE mission to Mars in 2024 and Rocket Lab’s upcoming private mission to Venus.

Advanced Space of Colorado, a leading commercial space solutions company, owns the CAPSTONE satellite and operates the mission. CAPSTONE was designed and built by Terran Orbital. CAPSTONE development is supported by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate via the Small Spacecraft Technology Program at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. Advanced Exploration Systems within NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate supports the launch and mission operations. NASA’s Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center in Florida is responsible for launch management.