Topline
NASA reestablished contact Thursday with a satellite on its way to study the moon’s orbit, two days after losing contact with the spacecraft – a critical project as the agency seeks to launch its first crewed moon landing in over five decades.
NASA lost communications with its CAPSTONE spacecraft Tuesday afternoon, one week after it took off … [+]
Key Facts
NASA said in a statement Wednesday evening the cause of the communication breakdown is still unknown, but that the satellite is “in good health and operated safely on its own while it was out of contact with Earth.”
Scientists are working to bring the satellite back on its trajectory by 11:30 a.m. ET Thursday, with a goal of reaching the moon’s orbit as early as Nov. 13.
In a statement released Tuesday, NASA said it is still working to figure out the cause of the communications issue, but the satellite has enough fuel for “several days,” buying the agency enough time to correct its course.
Advanced Space, a Colorado-based startup that developed and operates the $32.7 million satellite, first lost contact with the spacecraft Tuesday through a radio antenna platform called the Deep Space Network, according to the Associated Press.
The microwave-sized satellite—called the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE)—was launched last week from New Zealand to study the moon’s elongated orbit, eventually bringing it within 1,000 miles of the moon’s lunar pole over a four-month journey, according to NASA.
Key Background
The CAPSTONE project is designed to create an orbiting outpost for NASA’s Artemis missions, which aim to stage a first crewed moon landing by 2025—marking the first humans to visit the moon since the final Apollo mission in 1972. NASA said the mission will not only study the moon’s orbit, but will also create tens of thousands of jobs, “establish the first long-term presence on the moon” and help the agency understand what it would take to “establish a community” on Mars. The space agency says the Artemis missions will also include the first moon landing by a woman and by a person of color.
Further Reading
NASA’s CAPSTONE Launch Heralds A Future Of Cost-Effective Travel To The Moon (Forbes)
NASA: Contact lost with spacecraft on way to test moon orbit (Associated Press)
NASA lost contact with a satellite after it broke free of the Earth’s orbit (CNN)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2022/07/07/nasa-regains-communications-with-moon-orbiting-satellite/