Nasa’s Capstone Moon mission back on track after multiple failures

The Capstone mission may finally be on track to pioneer a new orbit around the Moon that could help Nasa astronauts land on the lunar surface in 2025

An illustration of Nasa’s Capstone spacecraft near the Moon (Nasa)

Nasa’s beleaguered small satellite mission to the Moon, Capstone, has overcome its latest hurdle to get back on track to the Moon.

The microwave-oven sized spacecraft completed an important course correction maneuver on 27 October crucial to setting the spacecraft on track to enter orbit around the Moon by mid-November, according to a Nasa update.

Capstone spent a month in safe mode, tumbling through space, after a malfunction following another course correction maneuver on 8 September.

“The team identified the most likely cause as a valve-related issue in one of the spacecraft’s eight thrusters,” Nasa announced in an update posted on Monday. “The mission team will design future maneuvers to work around the affected valve.”

Capstone will require two more manoeuvres to insert the spacecraft into an experimental orbit around the Moon.

Capstone stands for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, and is owned and operated by Colorado-based company Advance Space on behalf of Nasa. Its mission is to explore an unusual “near rectilinear halo orbit,” tracing a long oval with nearly flat sides and the Moon not centered, but tucked in one of the oval’s corners.

This unique orbit allows Capstone to fly relatively low over the Moon’s South Pole and high above the lunar North Pole, the same orbit Nasa intends to use for its Lunar Gateway, a lunar space station to be constructed as part of the space agency’s Artemis Moon program. Nasa astronauts will use the Gateway as a way station for traveling to and from the lunar surface and the Orion Spacecraft that carries then to the Moon from Earth.

Capstone was launched from New Zealand on 28 June, and promptly lost contact with the spacecraft on 4 July, shortly after it separated from the upper stage of the rocket that set it on course for the Moon.

Ground operators would reestablish communications on 6 July after determining they had accidentally sent a command to the spacecraft telling it to turn its radio off. An error in Capstone’s software kept the radio from rebooting itself.

Capstone then proceeded through its lengthy ballistic lunar transfer flight path, which saw the spacecraft fly out beyond the orbit of the Moon, reaching a peak distance of 963,00 miles from Earth, before allowing the Sun’s gravity to pull it back for a rendezvous with the Moon.

If Capstone remains error free for the rest of the mission, it will reach lunar orbit on 13 November.