Success! NASA's tiny CAPSTONE probe arrives at the moon - Space.com

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NASA's CAPSTONE probe arrived successful lunar orbit connected Nov. 13, 2022. This is an artist's illustration of the cubesat. (Image credit: NASA/ Daniel Rutter)

A tiny NASA spacecraft's historical trek to the satellite is over.

The 55-pound (25 kilograms) CAPSTONE probe slipped into orbit astir the moon connected Sunday evening (Nov. 13), becoming the archetypal cubesat ever to sojourn Earth's nearest neighbor.

The milestone came aft a palmy motor pain that ended astatine 7:39 p.m. EST (0039 GMT connected Nov. 14), NASA officials said successful a little update (opens successful caller tab).

#CAPSTONE is astatine the #Moon! Initial information indicates that insertion into Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) was executed arsenic planned. This week, 2 cleanup maneuvers volition guarantee the spacecraft was precisely inserted into orbit. Congratulations, CAPSTONE Mission Team!#innovation2orbit pic.twitter.com/5uBwwSsZdyNovember 14, 2022

The maneuver enactment CAPSTONE (short for "Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment") into a near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) astir the moon, a highly elliptical way that volition besides beryllium occupied by NASA's Gateway abstraction station.

NASA plans to motorboat the archetypal pieces of Gateway, a important portion of its Artemis program of satellite exploration, successful 2024. But the bureau wants to larn much astir lunar NRHOs first, and that's wherever CAPSTONE comes in: The microwave-oven-sized spacecraft volition verify the suspected stableness of this orbit, which a spacecraft has ne'er flown successful before, during a ngo designed to past astatine slightest six months.

CAPSTONE volition besides execute immoderate connection and navigation tests, immoderate of them successful performance with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been looping astir the satellite since 2009.

CAPSTONE isn't acceptable to get to enactment conscionable yet, however; it inactive needs to fine-tune its way astir the moon.

"Two smaller correction maneuvers volition instrumentality spot this week to guarantee the spacecraft is confirmed into the analyzable lunar orbit," representatives of the Colorado institution Advanced Space, which owns CAPSTONE and operates the cubesat for NASA, wrote successful an update Sunday night (opens successful caller tab).

CAPSTONE's way to lunar orbit was a spot bumpy. The probe launched atop a Rocket Lab Electron booster connected June 28, kicking disconnected a circuitous, highly fuel-efficient 4.5-month-long trek that followed gravitational contours.

The CAPSTONE squad lost interaction with the probe connected July 4, conscionable aft it separated from Rocket Lab's Photon spacecraft bus. They rapidly identified and fixed the problem, an improperly formatted command, getting CAPSTONE backmost connected way the adjacent day.

CAPSTONE ran into much occupation 2 months later. The probe suffered a glitch during a trajectory-correcting motor pain connected Sept. 8; it began to tumble and went into a protective harmless mode arsenic a result.

The ngo squad traced this occupation to a wonky valve successful CAPSTONE's propulsion system, troubleshot it, and got the probe back connected course for its historical lunar arrival.

Other cubesats volition soon travel successful CAPSTONE's footsteps, if each goes according to plan. NASA's Artemis 1 satellite ngo is scheduled to motorboat connected Nov. 16, sending the agency's Orion capsule connected an uncrewed shakeout cruise to lunar orbit. Artemis 1 volition besides loft 10 ride-along cubesats, immoderate of which volition survey the moon.

One of those small craft, Japan's OMOTENASHI ("Outstanding Moon exploration Technologies demonstrated by Nano Semi-Hard Impactor"), volition adjacent enactment a tiny lander down connected the moon.

Though CAPSTONE is simply a lunar trailblazer, it isn't the archetypal cubesat to spell beyond Earth orbit. That favoritism goes to NASA's MarCO-A and MarCO-B probes, besides known arsenic Wall-E and Eva, which launched with the agency's InSight Mars lander successful May 2018. The 2 cubesats helped beam location information during InSight's Red Planet touchdown six months aboriginal and besides managed to photograph Mars.

Mike Wall is the writer of "Out There (opens successful caller tab)" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a publication astir the hunt for alien life. Follow him connected Twitter @michaeldwall (opens successful caller tab). Follow america connected Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens successful caller tab) or Facebook (opens successful caller tab).

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Michael Wall is simply a Senior Space Writer with Space.com (opens successful caller tab) and joined the squad successful 2010. He chiefly covers exoplanets, spaceflight and subject space, but has been known to dabble successful the abstraction creation beat. His publication astir the hunt for alien life, "Out There," was published connected Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a subject writer, Michael worked arsenic a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. successful evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's grade from the University of Arizona, and a postgraduate certificate successful subject penning from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find retired what his latest task is, you tin travel Michael connected Twitter.

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