(Bloomberg) – New Zealand has announced its role in the plan to return humans to the moon, saying it will participate in NASA’s Capstone mission, which will test the orbit of a lunar space station.
Rocket Lab has announced that it will launch a satellite from Mahia, New Zealand to test the lunar orbit for the Gateway, a planned orbital post that will provide astronauts with access to the lunar surface. Separately, the New Zealand government said Monday it had signed an agreement with NASA to conduct new research to track spacecraft approaching and orbiting the moon.
“New Zealand’s space sector will participate in NASA’s Capstone Moon mission,” said Andrew Johnson, manager of the New Zealand Space Agency. The launch into lunar orbit from New Zealand is an “important stage”, while new research “will become increasingly important as more countries and private actors send spacecraft to the moon,” he said.
NASA’s Artemis program plans to bring humans back to the lunar surface as early as 2025 by resuming lunar exploration and advancing to explore Mars. He plans to land the first woman and the first colored face on the moon and explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.
Rocket Lab said it could launch the CubeSat satellite immediately on Tuesday, with the launch window open until July 27.
New Zealand’s agreement with NASA will lead a research team led by the University of Canterbury, which includes researchers from the University of Auckland and the University of New South Wales in Australia, to try to track spacecraft from observatories in Tekapo and Cancabera.
Scientists intend to confirm their observations and algorithms for predicting the trajectories of spacecraft on the way to the moon and within their lunar orbits according to data from the NASA mission Capstone.
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