Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) (Rocket Lab or The Company), a leading launch and space systems company, announced today that its Lunar Photon spacecraft has successfully completed the third of seven planned orbits, maneuvering the CAPSTONE spacecraft more near the moon.
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The CAPSTONE satellite was integrated into the Rocket Lab’s Lunar Photon spacecraft before the Electron rocket was launched. (Photo: Business Wire)
Owned and operated by Advanced Space on behalf of NASA, the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) CubeSat will be the first spacecraft to test an almost rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) around the moon. This is the same orbit for NASA’s Gateway & CloseCurlyQuote, a multifunctional orbital station on the moon that will provide basic support for long-term lunar missions by astronauts as part of the Artemis program.
The orbiting maneuvers came after Rocket Lab successfully launched CAPSTONE into initial parking orbit on June 28 with an Electron rocket from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. After the role of Electron & CloseCurlyQuote in the mission was completed, Lunar Photon took the reins, providing power, communications and space transportation to CAPSTONE for the next five-day phase of the mission.
During these days, the HyperCurie engine of Lunar Photon & CloseCurlyQuote will perform a series of orbiting maneuvers, igniting periodically to increase the speed of Photon & CloseCurlyQuote, stretching its orbit into a prominent ellipse around the Earth. Six days after launch, the HyperCurie will ignite for the last time, accelerating the Photon Lunar to 24,500 mph (39,500 km / h) and setting it up for a ballistic lunar transfer. Within 20 minutes of this final burn, Photon will launch CAPSTONE into space for the first phase of CubeSat & CloseCurlyQuote’s solo flight. CAPSTONE & CloseCurlyQuote’s trip to NRHO is expected to take about four months from now. Assisted by the Sun’s gravity, CAPSTONE will reach a distance of 963,000 miles from Earth – more than three times the distance between Earth and the Moon – before being pulled back to the Earth-Moon system.
Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said the launch of the CAPSTONE mission was the culmination of two and a half years of work and pushed the Electron launch vehicle to its limit. “Electron has lifted its heaviest payload to date by 300 kg – the combined mass of a lunar photon and CAPSTONE. We pushed Rutherford’s engines harder than ever and placed Lunar Photon and CAPSTONE exactly where they needed to go to begin the next phase of the mission. Now this is the Lunar Photon & CloseCurlyQuote show and we’re extremely proud of its performance so far. We’re really pushing the boundaries of what’s possible for interplanetary small satellite missions with CAPSTONE, and it’s exciting to think about the opportunities it opens up for more cost-effective missions to Venus and beyond Mars.
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+ About Rocket Lab
Founded in 2006, Rocket Lab is an end-to-end space company with proven experience in mission success. We provide reliable launch services, satellite production, spacecraft components and in-orbit management solutions that make it faster, easier and more accessible to access to space. Headquartered in Long Beach, California, Rocket Lab designs and manufactures the small Electron orbital launch vehicle and the Photon satellite platform, and develops the 8-ton Neutron-class payload. Since its first orbital launch in January 2018, Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle has become the second most frequently launched rocket in the United States each year and has delivered 147 satellites into orbit for private and public sector organizations, allowing operations in the field of national security, research, space debris mitigation, Earth observation, climate monitoring and communications. Rocket Lab & CloseCurlyQuote’s Photon platform has been chosen to support NASA’s missions to the moon and Mars, as well as the first private commercial mission to Venus. Rocket Lab has three launch pads on two launch pads, including two launch pads on a private orbital launch pad located in New Zealand and a second launch pad in Virginia, USA, which is expected to be operational in 2022. To learn more, visit www. rocketlabusa.com.
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