After going MIA for almost 24 hours, NASA’s CAPSTONE probe lastly reestablished contact with floor controllers. The microwave-sized satellite tv for pc is at present en path to the Moon the place it is going to check a singular orbital configuration for an upcoming lunar house station.

Ground controllers efficiently restored communication with the spacecraft on Wednesday at 9:26 a.m. ET, when the operations workforce started receiving alerts from CAPSTONE, according to Advanced Space, the Colorado-based firm which operates the mission for NASA. Approximately one hour later, the workforce was capable of verify that the spacecraft was wholesome and functioning usually. While it was silent, CAPSTONE autonomously carried out some duties, resembling sustaining its battery cost, staying pointed in the suitable path, and even performing a maneuver to do away with extra momentum.

The workforce believes that CAPSTONE is prepared for its first trajectory correction maneuver, considered one of a number of deliberate gravitational contours that’s set to ship the spacecraft in the direction of its distinctive elliptical orbit across the Moon. The workforce is making ready for the maneuver as early as 11:30 a.m. ET on Thursday.

NASA continues to be undecided what triggered CAPSTONE to drop its communications line with the company’s Deep Space Network, an array of big radio antennas that helps NASA keep involved with its spacecraft. “Ground-based testing suggests the issue was triggered during commissioning activities of the communications system,” NASA wrote in a weblog publish. “The team will continue to evaluate the data leading up to the communications issue and monitor CAPSTONE’s status.”

CAPSTONE launched on June 28 on board a Rocket Lab Electron rocket. Shortly after exiting Earth’s orbit to start its journey in the direction of the Moon, the spacecraft all of the sudden stopped sending alerts to the mission workforce. The 55-pound (25 kilograms) cubesat is on a ballistic lunar switch trajectory to the Moon, touring by way of a collection of gravitational loops to scale back the quantity of gas wanted to attain its vacation spot. The probe is scheduled to enter right into a close to rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) across the Moon on November 13. This gravitationally steady orbit ought to be ideally suited for NASA’s future Lunar Gateway (a small house station that will probably be positioned in lunar orbit later this decade in help of the Artemis program), however the CAPSTONE mission will check this out in follow.

Despite the mission workforce not understanding the precise explanation for the communications anomaly, the mission does appear to be continuing as deliberate. “The team has high confidence that the issue has been cleared and through changes to the configuration and operations it will not happen again,” Advanced Space wrote in a press release.

Let’s hope the corporate is correct. Those upcoming gravitational maneuvers will probably be exceptionally tough—if not inconceivable—for the spacecraft to drag off by itself.

More: The coolest photographs taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft.