NASA has canceled plans to launch a small cubesat to the Moon on Monday (June 27) to give more time to check its Rocket Lab launcher to fly.
The U.S. space agency announced today that it was no longer aiming for a launch Monday of the new CAPSTONE cubes on the Moon in an electron booster built by Rocket Lab. The mission, led by Advanced Space Company, was scheduled to launch from a platform on the Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand, at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT) on Monday.
“NASA, Rocket Lab and Advanced Space are withdrawing from the June 27 launch attempt of the CAPSTONE mission to the moon to allow Rocket Lab to conduct final system checks,” NASA officials wrote. in a June 26 update (opens in a new tab). “Teams are evaluating the weather and other factors to determine the date of the next launch attempt.”
Related: NASA’s CAPSTONE moon mission to go where no cubes have gone before
The next possible launch date for the CAPSTONE the size of a microwave oven is Tuesday, June 28, but NASA and its partners could launch the mission at any time before July 27 and still make sure that the cubesat will reach the moon on Nov. 13, the agency said. The mission has been repeatedly delayed since 2021, first due to problems related to the COVID-19 pandemic and later due to the need to do more checks on the cubesat and its promoter Rocket Lab.
CAPSTONE, or the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Operations and Technological Navigation Experiment, is a small 55-pound (25-kilogram) spacecraft designed to test a new trajectory around the Moon called an almost rectilinear halo orbit. The orbit, which follows an extremely elliptical path around the Moon, is the same one that NASA hopes to use for its planned space station Gateway for astronauts as part of the Artemis program.
Under the mission, CAPSTONE will launch with an electron impeller from Rocket Lab and use the company’s Photon stage to help it reach the Moon. It is the first mission in deep space of the Rocket Lab with Photon.
The cube of operations and navigation experiments of NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System (CAPSTONE) is seen during assembly with its solar arrays deployed. The 55-pound cubes is the size of a microwave oven. (Image credit: NASA / Dominic Hart)
If all goes well, CAPSTONE will separate from its Photon journey six days after launch and will slowly head to the Moon for about four months. Once in its final orbit, the spacecraft is expected to spend at least six months conducting navigation and communications experiments as part of its $ 30 million mission. It will fly up to 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from the Moon and up to 43,500 miles (70,000 km) from the lunar surface.
“The next launch opportunity within the current period is June 28,” NASA officials wrote in the update. “The design of CAPSTONE’s trajectory means that the spacecraft will reach its lunar orbit on November 13, regardless of the launch date within the current period, which offers launch opportunities every day until July 27.”
Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him at @tariqjmalik. Follow us on @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.