Rocket Lab is all set to launch the CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) satellite to the Moon. It is the first official mission of NASA’s Artemis program that seeks to permanently return humans to the surface of our nearest astronomical body.
Launched aboard the Electron rocket, crews are currently aiming at 5:55 AM EDT (09:55 UTC) on Tuesday, June 28, for the launch of the 1B launch complex at the Rocket launch facility Lab on the Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand. This mission will turn the Electron into the smallest rocket to launch a payload towards the Moon and the first lunar flight to take off from New Zealand.
Rocket Lab will not recover the first stage of this mission, so the Electron launch vehicle that supports this mission will fly in a standard configuration without any recovery hardware.
The second stage of the electron will place the payload in an initial low Earth orbit. To propel the 25 kg (55 lb) CubeSat to the Moon, Rocket Lab’s Lunar Photon, specially optimized for lunar missions, will give the payload the extra thrust needed to reach the Moon.
Powered by green-hypergolic propellers, its onboard Hypercurie engine will place the CAPSTONE satellite in a ballistic lunar transfer orbit. Unlike the free return trajectory used during the Apollo lunar missions of the 1960s and 1970s, this fuel-efficient ballistic lunar transfer allows CAPSTONE to be deployed to such a distant orbit using a small launch vehicle.
Once in lunar proximity, the CAPSTONE satellite will use its on-board propulsion systems to be placed in an almost rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon.
CAPSTONE payload
CAPSTONE is a CubeSat developed by the Terran Orbital Corporation and managed by NASA’s Small Spaceship Technology Program within the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
This is the first mission to be launched that directly supports NASA’s Artemis program, which plans to return humans to the moon and advance humanity’s paths to Mars. As such, CAPSTONE will be the first spacecraft to enter near-rectilinear halo (NRHO) orbit around the Moon.
The orbits of the Moon can seem awkward, depending on where you look. This is a Halo Orbit, used this weekend by @RocketLab’s CAPSTONE pic.twitter.com/YB92q73y2E
– Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) June 25, 2022
An NRHO is a very eccentric one-week orbit that works with a point of equilibrium in the gravities of the Earth and the Moon. This makes the orbit ideal for manned missions aboard the Gateway space station, NASA’s Orion spacecraft and / or the lunar variant of the SpaceX spacecraft, as it provides crews with routine access. to the polar lunar landing sites that are the targets of the Artemis program.
In addition to surface access and fuel efficiency, an NRHO will allow scientists to harness the deep space environment for radiation experiments to gain a better understanding of the potential impacts of space climate on people and the instruments. Most importantly, an NRHO trajectory also has a continuous line of sight, or “sight,” of the Earth, leading to uninterrupted communications between the spacecraft and the home.
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This differs from the Apollo missions that periodically lost communications with Earth as they passed behind the Moon.
The NRHO orbit will also bring CAPSTONE 1,600 kilometers from one lunar pole to its nearest passage and 70,000 kilometers from the other pole at its maximum every seven days, which requires less propulsion capacity for spacecraft flying to and from the surface of the Moon from which other orbits would allow. .
CAPSTONE is expected to reside in this orbit for at least six months to characterize the properties of this unique orbit.
The satellite will also validate the power and propulsion requirements to maintain this orbit as predicted by NASA models, thus reducing logistical uncertainties for Orion and Starship operations. CAPSTONE will also demonstrate the reliability of spacecraft-to-spacecraft navigation systems, as well as their communications capabilities with Earth, which will be widely used during manned Artemis missions by the Orion spacecraft and the spacecraft system. human spacecraft landing (HLS).
CAPSTONE will achieve these goals by using its secondary payload flight computer and radio to perform calculations to determine its position in orbit. This will be done using data taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) as a reference point.
The CAPSTONE payload at the Rocket Lab integration facility on LC-1. (Credit: Rocket Lab)
This peer-to-peer navigation system is called the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System, developed by the owner and main operator of the mission: Advanced Space.
This technology will be used to evaluate CAPSTONE’s standalone navigation software. If successful, this software will allow future spacecraft to determine their location without having to rely solely on tracking from Earth.
Overall, these are part of the six goals of CAPSTONE’s mission:
- verify the characteristics of a cis-lunar orbit near rectilinear halo
- demonstrate to enter and maintain this unique orbit
- lay the groundwork for commercial support for future lunar operations
- Demonstrate navigation between spacecraft
- demonstrate the one-way technique using deep space network signals and a chip-scale atomic clock
- Gain experience with small, dedicated CubeSats launches beyond low Earth orbit, into the Moon, and beyond.
Timeline launch
Final preparations for the launch will begin six hours before takeoff with the road closing to the launch site. At 4 p.m., Electron will rise to the upright position. After the bearing connection checks, the feeding of the rocket with RP-1 kerosene will begin, with liquid oxygen flowing to the rocket at T-2 hours at the same time as the safety zones for the marine space around the launch pad.
What’s going on in Launch Complex 1 and Mission Control as we count down for the launch? Here’s a look at what our team has been working on in the hours leading up to takeoff! #CAPSTONE pic.twitter.com/nluKRK3viO
– Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) June 28, 2022
At T-30 minutes, airspace closures will take effect for launch. This will be followed on the T-18 minutes later in the GO / NO GO survey.
From this point on, the next major event will occur in the T-2 minutes when the auto-launch sequence begins and the Electron’s on-board computers take control of the countdown.
At T-2 seconds, Electron’s 9 Rutherford engines will ignite and accumulate to maximum thrust as engine health checks are performed before the vehicle is released to fly at T0.
The electron will launch and roll toward an east trajectory to achieve the initial tilt of the low Earth orbit necessary for the mission. At T + 2 minutes 41 seconds, the engines of the first stage will shut down, followed by the separation of the stage. At T + 2 minutes 51 seconds, the Rutherford engine optimized for the vacuum of the second stage of the Electron ignites, with the fairings separating only 27 seconds later.
At T + 6 minutes 36 seconds, the initial set of batteries from the second stage will be removed and “hot swapped” with unused batteries on stage. At this point, spent batteries (battery A and B) will be thrown to reduce the mass on stage as it continues to rise into orbit.
At T + 9 minutes, Electron is expected to reach a low orbit of 165 kilometers. Over the next five days, Photon’s HyperCurie engine will perform a series of orbit elevation maneuvers from this initial parking orbit approximately once every 24 hours.
The Lunar Photon spacecraft before integrating the CAPSTONE payload. (Credit: Rocket Lab)
The photon will perform burns every day to increase the speed of the stage and increase the eccentricity of the orbit as it continues its path to the Moon. On the sixth day, HyperCurie will burn for the last time, accelerating the payload to 39,500 miles per hour and on a translunar injection trajectory that will take CAPSTONE from Earth to the Moon.
Twenty minutes after the last recording of the Photon is completed, CAPSTONE will be released from the Photon satellite bus.
Commanded by the advanced space mission operations center teams, CAPSTONE will perform a series of planned trajectory correction maneuvers using its low-power propulsion systems on board.
In general, the final photon burning will send CAPSTONE 1.3 million kilometers from Earth, more than three times its distance from the Moon before the gravity of the Earth-Moon system pulls it and pulls it toward the Moon. .
CAPSTONE will arrive on its Moon NRHO four months after launch.
(Main photo: Electron completing a wet dress rehearsal before the release of CAPSTONE. Credit: Rocket Lab)