CAPSTONE (Credit: Terran Orbital)
LONG BEACH, California (Rocket Lab PR) – Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) (“Rocket Lab” or “the Company”), a leading space and launch systems company, confirmed today that its Photon Lunar spacecraft has successfully completed. a sixth burn in orbit of the HyperCurie engine, bringing the CAPSTONE satellite closer to the Moon. The apogee of the lunar photon, the point at which the spacecraft is furthest from Earth during its orbit, is now 43,297 miles (69,680 km).
This sixth burn was originally scheduled for two burns, but the Rocket Lab’s space systems team determined that the HyperCurie engine would be able to perform a single maneuver to achieve the same delta-v, so the two were combined. .
The next and final burn is designed to establish CAPSTONE on a ballistic lunar transfer trajectory to the Moon traveling at 24,500 mph (39,400 km / h) to free itself from Earth’s orbit. This final maneuver is currently scheduled to take place on July 4th. After separating from Lunar Photon, CAPSTONE will use its own propulsion and gravity from the Sun to navigate the rest of the way to the Moon, a four-month journey that will cause CAPSTONE to reach its lunar orbit on November 13. .
ABOUT CAPSTONE:
Designed and built by Terran Orbital, and owned and operated by Advanced Space on behalf of NASA, the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) satellite will be the first spacecraft to test the rectilinear Prop Halo Orbit. (NRHO) around the Moon. . This is the same orbit destined for the NASA catwalk, a multipurpose station in orbit of the Moon that will provide essential support for long-term astronaut lunar missions as part of the Artemis program. CAPSTONE was successfully launched into space at Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle on June 28th.