Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) has launched a satellite to the Moon for NASA from Rocket Lab's Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand's Mahia Peninsula. The launch window opened at 09:50 UTC on June 28th.

Designed and built by Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, a Terran Orbital Corporation, and owned and operated by Advanced Space on behalf of NASA, the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) CubeSat will be the first spacecraft to test the Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) around the Moon.

Researchers expect this orbit to be a gravitational sweet spot in space - where the pull of gravity from Earth and the Moon interact to allow for a nearly-stable orbit - allowing physics to do most of the work of keeping a spacecraft in orbit around the Moon.

NASA has big plans for this unique type of orbit. The agency hopes to park bigger spacecraft - including the lunar-orbiting space station Gateway - in an NRHO around the Moon, providing astronauts with a base from which to descend to the lunar surface as part of the Artemis program.

CAPSTONE will be launched to an initial low Earth orbit by Rocket Lab's Electron launch vehicle and then placed on a ballistic lunar transfer by Rocket Lab's Lunar Photon spacecraft bus.

Unlike the Apollo lunar missions of the 1960s and 70s, which took a free return trajectory to the Moon, this fuel efficient ballistic lunar transfer makes it possible to deploy CAPSTONE to such a distant orbit using a small launch vehicle. Standing at just 59 feet tall, Electron is the smallest rocket to attempt a launch to the Moon.

Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Peter Beck, said: "This is Rocket Lab's most ambitious mission yet. For the first time, Electron and Photon are going far beyond standard mission profiles, pushing the envelope of what's possible for interplanetary small spacecraft missions.

"No spacecraft has ever been placed in this type of orbit, so it's exciting to be working with such innovative partners in NASA, Advanced Space, and Terran Orbital to make this ground-breaking mission possible," said Beck.

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Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spots rocket impact site on Moon
Tempe AZ (SPX) Jun 24, 2022
Astronomers discovered a rocket body heading toward a lunar collision late last year. Impact occurred March 4, with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter later spotting the resulting crater. Surprisingly the crater is actually two craters, an eastern crater (18-meter diameter, about 19.5 yards) superimposed on a western crater (16-meter diameter, about 17.5 yards). The double crater was unexpected and may indicate that the rocket body had large masses at each end. Typically a spent rocket has mass c ... read more

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