Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

CAPSTONE, NASA’s cis-lunar pathfinder CubeSat.
Image credit: NASA/Daniel Rutter

Sent moonward over two years ago, NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment — mercifully shortened to CAPSTONE – is trial-running techniques to enhance spacecraft operations in cis-lunar space.

Launched on June 28, 2022 aboard a Rocket Lab Electron booster from New Zealand, CAPSTONE — a microwave oven-sized CubeSat weighing a modest 55 pounds — is on task assessing Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) operations.

Artemis Gateway

The Gateway space station will operate in a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit supporting crewed Artemis missions to the Moon.
Image credit: NASA/Alberto Bertolin, Bradley Reynolds

NRHO is the locale of NASA’s cislunar Gateway space station. That outpost is to shore up long-term human exploration of the Moon, allowing crews to access the lunar south pole – an early priority zone for the space agency’s Artemis program.

Advanced Space of Westminster, Colorado owns and operates CAPSTONE for the entirety of its mission.

Find out what CAPSTONE is doing on its slate of on-duty tasks by reading my new SpaceNews story – at:

https://spacenews.com/nasa-capstone-testing-autopilot-software-suite-cislunar-operations/