Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) (“Rocket Lab” or “The Company”), a leading launch and space systems company, today confirmed that its spacecraft Photon Lunar has successfully brought NASA’s CAPSTONE spacecraft closer to the moon to complete its fourth orbit maneuver.
After CAPSTONE was successfully delivered into space with Rocket Lab & CloseCurlyQuote’s Electron rocket and the Photon Lunar spacecraft, NASA’s CubeSat remains attached to Photon as it periodically ignites its HyperCurie engine to accelerate the mission beyond Earth or CloseteC.
Today, Photon successfully completed its fourth orbiting maneuver to bring CAPSTONE closer to the moon, the second of two completed maneuvers in the same 24-hour period. After the next few days and successive burns to the HyperCurie engine, Photon will launch CAPSTONE on a ballistic trajectory of a lunar transfer to the Moon, from which Advanced Space (which owns and operates CAPSTONE on behalf of NASA) will take over the CAPSTONE mission.
FOR CAPSTONE:
The Cislunar (CAPSTONE) CubeSat autonomous positioning and navigation experiment was successfully launched into space by Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle at 09:55 UTC on June 28.
Designed and built by Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Terran Orbital Corporation, and 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 Near 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.
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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-tonne Neutron-class launch vehicle. 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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