Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
Author: 
July 13th, 2022
Encapsulated X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle for United States Space Force-7 mission.
Credit: Boeing
The still orbiting X-37B space drone broke the program’s on-orbit record for long duration flight on 6 July at 5:49:08 ZULU, according to a Pentagon statement.
This U.S. Space Force robotic craft zipped by the last milestone-making flight of the program: 780 days on orbit.
Not a word on how long this current 6th mission — X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-6) – will remain in orbit. It was launched on May 17, 2020 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
Encapsulated X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle for United States Space Force-7 mission.
Credit: Boeing
“The X-37B team continues to exemplify the kind of lean, agile and forward-leaning technology development we need as a nation in the space domain,” said U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations, Gen. John “Jay” Raymond.
“Each launch represents a significant milestone and advancement in terms of how we build, test, and deploy space capabilities in a rapid and responsive manner, Raymond said in saluting the OTV-6 launch.
Service module
This mission underway is the first X-37B vehicle to use a service module to host experiments. The service module is an attachment to the aft of the vehicle that allows additional experimental payload capability to be carried to orbit.
Coin and patch of the same design might be showing the X-37B “service module.”
Courtesy: Mike Rose
Coin and patch of the same design might be showing the X-37B “service module.”
Courtesy: Mike Rose
The mission deployed the FalconSat-8, a small satellite developed by the U.S. Air Force Academy and sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory to conduct several experiments on orbit.
In addition, two NASA experiments are onboard the space plane to study the results of radiation and other space effects on a materials sample plate and seeds used to grow food.
Also, a U.S. Naval Research Laboratory experiment is evaluating technology to transform solar power into radio frequency microwave energy.
X-37B (OTV-5) on the runway after landing at the Kennedy Space Center.
Credit: U.S. Air Force
Technologies being tested in the X-37B program include advanced guidance, navigation and control, thermal protection systems, avionics, high temperature structures and seals, conformal reusable insulation, lightweight electromechanical flight systems, advanced propulsion systems, advanced materials and autonomous orbital flight, reentry and landing.
Flight roster
Here’s a listing of previous flights of the space plane:
OTV-1: launched on April 22, 2010 and landed on December 3, 2010, spending over 224 days on orbit.
OTV-2: launched on March 5, 2011 and landed on June 16, 2012, spending over 468 days on orbit.
OTV-3: launched on December 11, 2012 and landed on October 17, 2014, spending over 674 days on-orbit.
OTV-4: launched on May 20, 2015 and landed on May 7, 2015, spending nearly 718 days on-orbit.
OTV-5: launched on September 7, 2017 and landed on October 27, 2019, spending nearly 780 days on-orbit.
As to when and where OTV-6 will return to a wheels-stopped landing is anybody’s guess.
OTV-1, OTV-2, and OTV-3 missions landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, while the OTV-4 and OTV-5 missions landed at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Encapsulated X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle for United States Space Force-7 mission.
Credit: Boeing
Posted in 
Credit: CNAS/CCTV Video News Agency/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China’s next step in constructing the country’s space station is launch of the Wentian lab module.
As the first lab component of China’s Tiangong space station, the hardware is set for liftoff this month, perhaps on July 24th, from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in Hainan.
The Beijing Aerospace Control Center issued an orbit control command to the now orbiting space station’s components on July 4, in preparation for Wentian to dock with Tianhe, the station’s core module.
Credit: Lee Brandon-Cremer (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Module duties
Following the docking, the trio of Shenzhou-14 astronauts will enter the Wentian lab module to activate the life support system, assemble experiment cabinets, and carry out cross-scientific research, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).
A new space science lecture will be delivered from the Wentian lab module, the first time for the taikonauts to broadcast a live lecture from a space lab module, the CMSA added.
Additionally, spacewalks will be carried out from this lab module.
The Wentian lab will mainly focus on the study of space life sciences, which can support the growth, development, genetics and aging of multiple species of plants, animals and microorganisms under space conditions.
Shenzhou-14 crew. Credit: China Manned Space Engineering Office
Next module up
Meanwhile, the next station segment, the Mengtian lab module, is slated for launch in October.
The Mengtian lab will be oriented to microgravity research and is equipped with experimental cabinets for fluid physics, materials science, combustion science, basic physics and space technology.
On June 5, China launched the Shenzhou-14 crew — Cai Xuzhe, Chen Dong and Liu Yang – to carry out a six-month mission to help complete the construction of the country’s space station.
Main propellant tank of the second stage of a Delta 2 launch vehicle which landed near Georgetown, TX, on January 22, 1997. This approximately 250 kg tank is primarily a stainless steel structure and survived reentry relatively intact. Credit: NASA ODPO.
The number of rocket bodies abandoned in orbit is growing. The distribution of rocket body launches and reentries leads to what’s termed as the “casualty expectation,” in other words, risk to human life. That incoming space risk to humans is being disproportionately borne by populations in the Global South, with major launching states exporting risk to the rest of the world.”
A new research paper has focused on space launches resulting in uncontrolled rocket body reentries, creating casualty risks for people on the ground, at sea and in airplanes.
Populations put at risk
Using publicly available reports of rocket launches and data on abandoned rocket bodies in orbit, researchers calculate approximate casualty expectations due to rocket body reentries as a function of latitude.
Some major and high-risk cities are labelled: 1, Moscow; 2, Washington, DC; 3, Beijing; 4, Dhaka; 5, Mexico City; 6, Lagos; 7, Bogotá; 8, Jakarta. The chosen weighting function is for all rocket bodies currently in orbit with perigees less than 600 km in altitude. The outline of the continents is an equirectangular projection, taken from the Python package Cartopy.
Credit: Michael Byers, et al.
They argue that recent improvements in technology and mission design “make most of these uncontrolled reentries unnecessary, but that launching states and companies are reluctant to take on the increased costs involved.”
Furthermore, those national governments whose populations are being put at risk “should demand that major spacefaring states act, together, to mandate controlled rocket reentries, create meaningful consequences for non-compliance and thus eliminate the risks for everyone.”
Shortage of international rules
The research paper – “Unnecessary risks created by uncontrolled rocket reentries” – appears in Nature Astronomy.
Led by Michael Byers of the Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the paper notes that “the added technological complexity and cost involved in achieving controlled reentries helps to explain the shortage of international rules on this matter.”
Among examples in the paper:
— In 2016, the second stage of a SpaceX rocket was abandoned in orbit; it reentered one month later over Indonesia, with two refrigerator-sized fuel tanks reaching the ground intact.
— In May 2020, an 18-ton core stage of China’s Long March 5B rocket reentered the atmosphere from orbit in an uncontrolled manner. Debris from the rocket body, including a 12-meter-long pipe, struck two villages in the Ivory Coast, causing damage to several buildings.
— In 2021, another 18-ton core stage of a Long March 5B rocket made an uncontrolled reentry crashing into the Indian Ocean.
Air Force reservists hoist a 480-pound rocket part into a C-17 Globemaster III, Aug. 26, 2011. The aircraft was in Mongolia from the 729th Airlift Squadron at March Air Reserve Base, Calif., to retrieve fallen space debris. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Linda Welz)
Potentially lethal
When intact stages return to Earth, the paper says, “a substantial fraction of their mass survives the heat of atmospheric reentry as debris. Many of the surviving pieces are potentially lethal, posing serious risks on land, at sea and to people in airplanes,” adding that “even a small piece could cause hundreds of casualties.”
In their work, the trend of rocket body reentries from the past 30 years was assessed, then applied to the next 10 years. The number of rocket launches is increasing quickly and assuming that each reentry spreads lethal debris over a 10m2 area, “we conclude that current practices have on order a 10% chance of one or more casualties over a decade.”
In a concluding statement, the paper states: “On the issue of uncontrolled rocket body reentries, the states of the Global South hold the moral high ground: their citizens are bearing most of the risks, and unnecessarily so, since the technologies and mission designs needed to prevent casualties exist already.”
To take a read of the full paper — “Unnecessary risks created by uncontrolled rocket reentries” – go to:
Mars Life Explorer – a general engineering model for MLE with solar panels, drill, and science payload on lander deck.
Courtesy: Amy Williams
There is one topic about Mars that generates extensive debate and discussion. The weighty question that remains is whether there is life today on the Red Planet, perhaps lurking in some protected ecological niche on that far-off world.
How to dig into and get to the bottom of that inquiry appears to mean doing just that – go subsurface.
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter carries the Shallow Subsurface Radar, also known as SHARAD. It is on the prowl for underground liquid or frozen water.
Credit: NASA
Prepared for NASA by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and released in April, the report — Origins, Worlds, and Life: A Decadal Strategy for Planetary Science and Astrobiology 2023-2032 – addressed the issue of spotting life that’s alive and well on Mars today.
Enter the Mars Life Explorer or MLE in space short form.
For extensive details on this proposed spacecraft mission, go to my new Space.com story — NASA’s Mars Life Explorer mission would dig deep to hunt for Red Planet life – If approved by NASA, the life-hunting mission could launch in the 2030s” at:
https://www.space.com/nasa-mars-life-explorer-concept-mission
Credit: Terran Orbital Corporation
NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) is healthy and doing well.
The mini-probe suffered an anomaly during commissioning activities. The operations team began actively working the issue with the NASA Deep Space Network and identified a path forward.
Anomaly details
According to NASA in detailing the anomaly: “During commissioning of CAPSTONE, the Deep Space Network team noted inconsistent ranging data. While investigating this, the spacecraft operations team attempted to access diagnostic data on the spacecraft’s radio and sent an improperly formatted command that made the radio inoperable. The spacecraft fault detection system should have immediately rebooted the radio but did not because of a fault in the spacecraft flight software.”
Designed and built by Terran Orbital, CAPSTONE will support NASA’s Artemis program in reducing the risk for future Moon bound spacecraft.
Credit: Terran Orbital
“CAPSTONE’s autonomous flight software system eventually cleared the fault and brought the spacecraft back into communication with the ground, allowing the team to implement recovery procedures and begin commanding the spacecraft again,” the NASA statement explains.
Review of data
On Saturday morning, a trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) was rescheduled.
The CAPSTONE mission team rescheduled the TCM “to review additional data and perform additional analysis to support modeling of the spacecraft performance during maneuvers,” according to Advanced Space, owner and operator of outbound probe.
CAPSTONE team members install solar panels onto the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment – at Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems Inc. in Irvine, California.
Credits: NASA/Dominic Hart
The rescheduled plan does not have any significant impact on the size of the planned correction maneuver which was part of the TCM-1 executed two days prior.
The spacecraft is healthy, communicating with NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) and in a nominal state.
Scheduled TCMs
TCM1 had three scheduled maneuvers:TCM1a, TCM1b and TCM1c.
According to Advanced Space, the purpose of these scheduled TCM1 series is:
— Cleaning up the launch injection deviations from the Lunar Photon vehicle
— Commissioning the thrusters which calibrates the propulsion system
TCM1a completed approximately 90% of the objectives of the TCM. With the healthy state of the spacecraft TCM1b did not need to be performed.
CAPSTONE
Credit: NASA
“In the typical course of spacecraft commissioning activity, schedules often are adjusted. The mission team continues to work around the clock on flight dynamics analysis, trajectory design, spacecraft commanding, communications and health check activities and looks forward to the next needed maneuver,” Advanced Space said in a statement.
“Overall, CAPSTONE is in a nominal state, healthy and still on schedule to arrival to the Moon in four months on November 13th.”
The destination for this microwave oven-size CubeSat is a near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO), the orbit of choice planned for Gateway, the multipurpose outpost for long-term lunar missions as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
The Gateway in lunar orbit is where astronauts will transfer between the Orion piloted spacecraft and the lander on regular Artemis missions.
Credit: NPO Lavochkin
Russia’s reactivation of Moon exploration has made progress as the country’s Luna-25 probe has passed thermal vacuum tests.
Those tests put the spacecraft through extremely hot/cold soaks, reports Vasily Boyarkin, head of the Research and Testing Center of the Rocket and Space Industry near Moscow.
Russia’s Luna-25 will test lunar sampling skills.
Credit: NPO Lavochkin/IKI/Roscosmos
“The tests were carried out according to the program of complex experimental development. The device showed itself well, it withstood all thermal cycles, extremely cold and extremely hot modes,” Boyarkin reportedly said on Roscosmos TV.
The test chamber uses a complex system of mirrors, simulating the loads of solar radiation.
Factory floor integration of science instruments on Russia’s Luna-25 Moon lander.
Credit: Roscosmos
Launch period
After completion of the tests, a commission of designers carried out an inspection of Luna-25, a group that included experts from JSC NPO Lavochkin that designed and built the craft.
Luna-25 is intended to become the first domestic apparatus in modern Russia to head for the Moon. Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin said that the mission to the Moon should be launched before the end of September.
Topographic map of the southern sub-polar region of the Moon showing the location of Boguslawsky crater.
Credit: Ivanov et al., 2015 via Arizona State University/LROC
The probe is targeted for a region of the south pole of the Moon, touching down near the Boguslavsky crater.
Go to this video (in Russian) detailing the Luna-25 project:
On location!
Credit: Northrop Grumman
A NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency/Space Telescope Science Institute team will next week reveal the James Webb Space Telescope’s first full-color images and spectroscopic data. The release of these first images marks the official beginning of Webb’s science operations.
Commissioning!
Credit: NASA GSFC/CIL/Adriana Manrique Gutierrez
Here’s what’s coming:
Carina Nebula
The Carina Nebula is one of the largest and brightest nebulae in the sky, located approximately 7,600 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. Nebulae are stellar nurseries where stars form. The Carina Nebula is home to many massive stars, several times larger than the Sun.
WASP-96b (spectrum)
WASP-96b is a giant planet outside our Solar System, composed mainly of gas. The planet, located nearly 1,150 light-years from Earth, orbits its star every 3.4 days. It has about half the mass of Jupiter, and its discovery was announced in 2014.
Southern Ring Nebula
The Southern Ring, or “Eight-Burst” nebula, is a planetary nebula – an expanding cloud of gas, surrounding a dying star. It is nearly half a light-year in diameter and is located approximately 2,000 light years away from Earth.
Stephan’s Quintet
About 290 million light-years away, Stephan’s Quintet is located in the constellation Pegasus. It is notable for being the first compact galaxy group ever discovered. Four of the five galaxies within the quintet are locked in a cosmic dance of repeated close encounters.
SMACS 0723
Massive foreground galaxy clusters magnify and distort the light of objects behind them, permitting a deep field view into both the extremely distant and intrinsically faint galaxy populations.
Artist’s view of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in space, up and operating tackling a full agenda of space science conquests.
Credit: Northrop Grumman
Chang’e-4 far side mission – lander and Yutu-2 rover.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
China’s Chang’e-4 lunar lander and the Yutu-2 rover have been switched to dormant mode once again on Wednesday for the lunar night after working stably for a 44th lunar day. A lunar day is equal to 14 days on Earth, and a lunar night is of the same length.
Yutu-2 rover as imaged by Chang’e-4 lander earlier in the far side mission.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
According to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), the lunar rover, switching to dormant mode during the lunar night due to the lack of solar power, has traveled 4,068 feet (239.88 meters) on the far side of the Moon.
Chang’e-4’s far side landing zone.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
In forget me not mode, the Chang’e-4 probe, launched on December 8, 2018, made the first-ever soft landing within the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the Moon on January 3, 2019.
At present, the Chang’e-4 lander and the rover Yutu-2 have been working for more than three years on the far side of the Moon, collecting over 3,800 GB science data.
X-37B now on the 6th mission of the space plane program.
Credit: Boeing
The Earth-circling U.S. military X-37B robotic space drone has broken a record, setting a new long-duration trek in space for the program.
The Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-6), also called USSF-7 for the U.S. Space Force, was launched on May 17, 2020 atop an Atlas-V 501 booster and has now sailed past 780 days of time on orbit.
Flight of the previous record-holder was OTV-5 that spent nearly 780 days on-orbit.
The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle mission 4 (OTV-4), the Air Force’s unmanned, reusable space plane, landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility May 7, 2017.
Credit: USAF
Classified status
While the Boeing-built robotic space plane’s on-orbit primary agenda is on hush-hush, classified status, some onboard experiments were discussed pre-launch.
Air Force X-37B space plane.
Credit: Boeing
One experiment onboard the space plane is from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), an investigation into transforming solar power into radio frequency microwave energy. The experiment itself is called the Photovoltaic Radio-frequency Antenna Module, PRAM for short.
Along with toting NRL’s PRAM into Earth orbit, the X-37B also deployed the FalconSat-8, a small satellite developed by the U.S. Air Force Academy and sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory to conduct several experiments on orbit.
Recovery crew members process the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle at Vandenberg Air Force Base after the program’s third mission complete.
Credit: Boeing
In addition, two NASA experiments are tucked onboard the space plane to study the effects of the space environment on a materials sample plate and seeds used to grow food.
Flight roster
Here’s a roster of X-37B missions showing the increasing duration of flight time.
OTV-1: launched on April 22, 2010 and landed on December 3, 2010, spending over 224 days on orbit.
OTV-2: launched on March 5, 2011 and landed on June 16, 2012, spending over 468 days on orbit.
OTV-3: launched on December 11, 2012 and landed on October 17, 2014, spending over 674 days on-orbit.
OTV-4: launched on May 20, 2015 and landed on May 7, 2015, spending nearly 718 days on-orbit.
OTV-5: launched on September 7, 2017 and landed on October 27, 2019, spending nearly 780 days on-orbit.
As to when and where OTV-6 will fly to a wheels-stopped landing, and where, is a guess, but likely Kennedy Space Center.
OTV-1, OTV-2, and OTV-3 missions landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, while the OTV-4 and OTV-5 missions landed at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Vehicle features
Boeing, as the space plane maker, notes that the vehicle features many elements that mark a first use in space, including:
- Avionics designed to automate all de-orbit and landing functions.
- Flight controls and brakes using all electro-mechanical actuation; no hydraulics on board.
- Built using a lighter composite structure, rather than traditional aluminum.
- New generation of high-temperature wing leading-edge tiles and toughened uni-piece fibrous refractory oxidation-resistant ceramic (TUFROC) tiles.
- Advanced conformal reusable insulation (CRI) blankets.
- Toughened uni-piece fibrous insulation (TUFI) impregnated silica tiles.
Reusable vehicle
Credit: U.S. Air Force/Boeing
Presently, as far as known, there are just two X-37B vehicles in the program.
A Boeing fact sheet notes that “the X-37B is one of the world’s newest and most advanced re-entry spacecraft, designed to operate in low-Earth orbit, 150 to 500 miles above the Earth. The vehicle is the first since the Space Shuttle with the ability to return experiments to Earth for further inspection and analysis. This United States Air Force unmanned space vehicle explores reusable vehicle technologies that support long-term space objectives.”
At first designed to fly 270 days per mission, Boeing adds that “the X-37B has set progressive records for time on orbit during each of its five previous missions.”
X-37B hangar at Kennedy Space Center.
Credit: Michael Martin/SAF
Credit: Advanced Space
Update: All went well on the TCM-1, reports Advanced Space.
That once troubled CubeSat headed for the Moon – CAPSTONE – is now scheduled for a trajectory correction maneuver-1 (TCM-1) at11:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) suffered an anomaly during commissioning activities. The operations team began actively working the issue with the NASA Deep Space Network and identified a path forward.
Rebecca Rogers, systems engineer, left, takes dimension measurements of the CAPSTONE spacecraft at Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Inc., in Irvine, California.
Happy and healthy
The mission operations team is now confident based on telemetry that the spacecraft is healthy and functioning as expected, explains Advanced Space, owner and operator of the micro-explorer.
Initial data from the spacecraft suggests that it is “happy and healthy” and performed autonomously during the time it did not have communications from the ground including remaining properly pointed, maintaining battery charge, and conducting a momentum desaturation maneuver.
CAPSTONE
Credit: NASA
Anomaly cause
As for the cause of the anomaly, Advanced Space responded to an Inside Outer Space inquiry: “We are still actively working resolution of the issue however data and ground based testing suggest the anomaly was triggered during commissioning activities of the communications system. The issue is believed to be well understood and preventable moving forward.”
Orion spacecraft pulls up to Gateway.
Credit: NASA
CAPSTONE will take four months to reach the planned Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit around the Moon.
The microwave oven-sized mini-probe is supporting NASA’s Artemis program as a pathfinder for NASA’s Gateway station, a Moon-orbiting outpost.
The mission is to help reduce the risk for future spacecraft by validating innovative navigation technologies and verifying the dynamics of the Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO).
Credit: Rocket Lab via Twitter
What happened today?
In a statement from Advanced Space, here’s what took place today and its significance:
At approximately 11:30 Eastern Time, the CAPSTONE spacecraft successfully executed its first trajectory correction maneuver on its way to the Moon and the spacecraft is in a healthy state.
“This maneuver is the first statistical maneuver of the mission meaning it is designed to clean up errors from the launch vehicle injection and does not change the baseline transfer approach or timing of arrival at the Moon on November 13th. Operations on the Ballistic Lunar Transfer and in Earth-Moon three-body orbits (such as Near Rectilinear Halo Orbits or NRHOs) require precise maneuvers and knowledge of the spacecraft state (position and velocity). The CAPSTONE propulsion system was specifically designed and optimized for these precise maneuvers and the navigation system was built from the ground up to be efficient and scalable. All of this is supported by a uniquely qualified team of flight dynamics experts at Advanced Space with specialized focus on operations in cislunar space and multi-body orbital operations.”
Jeffrey Parker, chief technology officer of Advanced Space (left) explains the CAPSTONE mission to U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper over a full-size model of the spacecraft.
Credit: Advanced Space/Jason Johnson
Post-burn stats
“This is the first maneuver executed by the CAPSTONE spacecraft using its on-board propulsion system. Prior to this maneuver the propulsion system was commissioned and demonstrated during initial de-tumble after spacecraft deployment on July 4th and during prior momentum desaturation maneuvers on July 6th and earlier today on July 7th.”
“The maneuver was designed by the Advanced Space flight dynamics team based on navigation information collected by the Deep Space Network and processed by the Advanced Space flight dynamics team.
The burn was commanded, and post-burn telemetry processed by operators at the Terran Orbital Mission Operations Center. The maneuver itself was designed to be approximately 20 m/s and initial radiometric-based reconstruction suggests it achieved approximately 19.85 m/s which represents an error of approximately 0.75 % which is well within expectations and predictions. These details will be further refined as more data is collected.”
Credit: Rocket Lab via Twitter
Closing in on the Moon
At the time of the TCM-1 burn execution, CAPSTONE was approximately 465,000 km from the Earth (~13 times further than the GEO belt and ~81,000 km further than the Moon).
“Prior to this maneuver the spacecraft was on a trajectory that would take it approximately 1.2 million km from Earth, after this maneuver the spacecraft is now targeting a trajectory that will take it approximately 1.4 million km from Earth (~39 times GEO, or 3.6 times the distance of the Moon).”
“As the team has continued to review data on the communications anomaly, the team remained confident with this conclusion prior to commanding the maneuver. Anomalies such as this are rarely a result of a single issue but instead are the result of a series of issues that converge in an unexpected way. For CAPSTONE, this series of events began during commissioning with an improperly formatted command that triggered a radio vulnerability and was compounded by a spacecraft flight software contingency response fault. The system was ultimately recovered by the team as a result of autonomous flight software system operations that cleared the fault and brought the system back into communication with the ground. During the communications outage the spacecraft autonomously operated, maintained pointing, battery charge, and performed a momentum desaturation maneuver.”
Credit: Terran Orbital Corporation
What next?
Up next for the CAPSTONE spacecraft is a second trajectory correction maneuver planned for Saturday July 9th at approximately 11:30 Eastern Time.
“This second maneuver will be much smaller than the first and will demonstrate the ability of the CAPSTONE spacecraft to perform very small and precise maneuvers, a capability that is critical to operations in the NRHO where it will arrive in November. This maneuver is designed to further clean up launch injection errors, and any execution errors that occurred in the execution of today’s maneuver. Over the next two days, the operations team will continue evaluating spacecraft status and continue commissioning the spacecraft,” notes the Advanced Space statement.
CAPSTONE is on track to reach its Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) around the Moon on November 13.
