The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has lost communication with its Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) spacecraft which was on its way towards one of the moon’s orbits. CAPSTONE was successfully launched from New Zealand on June 28. Its initial solo journey to the moon started on July 4 after leaving the Earth’s orbit. Everything was going fine until it lost communication with its operators, causing a delay in its trajectory correction maneuvers. However, NASA’s engineers are confident in re-establishing connection with the $30 million spacecraft.
The CAPSTONE spacecraft, owned and operated by Advanced Space of Westminster, Colorado, relied on a compact yet sophisticated upper stage for thruster firings to boost it to the high point of an elliptical orbit. After reaching to a point where it could break free of Earth's gravity it was supposed to head for the moon.
Those initial maneuvers were successful, and the CAPSTONE was released from Rocketlab's Photon upper stage early Monday to fly on its own. The company also confirmed successful solar array deployment, spacecraft stabilisation and battery charging.
The first 11 hours of the spacecraft commissioning proceeded normally. However, "an anomaly was experienced related to the communications subsystem," during a second communications pass, Advanced Space said on its website.
The CAPSTONE is now on its own and is supposed to use its propulsion system to navigate to the moon where it will attempt to enter a new type of halo-shaped orbit. The spacecraft is testing out the same orbit for NASA's upcoming lunar gateway, which will serve as an orbiting outpost for Artemis astronauts visiting the moon's surface later this decade. The orbit is expected to be extremely fuel efficient for spacecraft.
Due to the loss of communication, a planned trajectory correction maneuver to fine-tune CAPSTONE’s path has been delayed. The spacecraft is in its initial ‘ballistic lunar transfer,’ or BLT, trajectory. As of Tuesday, the CAPSTONE was about 174,000 miles from Earth, as per a CBS news report.
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As per NASA, the CAPSTONE is carrying enough fuel that its initial navigation maneuvers can be postponed for several days. In the meantime, the mission controllers will work to re-establish contact with the spacecraft.
An update revealed that the CAPSTONE had pinged two NASA ground stations, one in Madrid, Spain, and the other in Goldstone, California. From this, NASA was able to determine the probe's "approximate position and velocity in space."
The CAPSTONE spacecraft is a pathfinder for NASA's planned Gateway lunar space station. It is also designed to measure the deep space radiation environment and test techniques that one day might determine a moon-orbiting spacecraft's exact location without relying on Earth-based tracking.
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
