NASA’s Moonbound CAPSTONE Probe Is Stuck in Safe Mode

NASA’s CAPSTONE probe has practically accomplished its four-month-long journey to the Moon, the place it’s going to take a look at a singular halo orbit in preparation for a future house station. Late final week, nonetheless, because the probe was performing a course correction maneuver, CAPSTONE entered into protected mode from which it has but to emerge.

CAPSTONE entered into protected mode through the night of Thursday, September 8, simply because the probe was finishing a trajectory correction maneuver. CAPSTONE’s mission group “has good knowledge of the state and status of the spacecraft,” NASA stated in a painfully transient statement. “The mission operations team is in contact with the spacecraft and working towards a solution with support from the Deep Space Network. Additional updates will be provided as available.” No additional updates have been supplied because the assertion was revealed on September 10.

“The mission operations team is in contact with the vehicle and working to resolve the anomaly,” Advanced Space, the NASA-funded firm that owns and operates the probe, stated in a statement. “As resolution efforts progress, more updates will be provided. The spacecraft remains on its planned course to the Moon.”

CAPSTONE, or Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, launched to house on June 28 aboard a Rocket Lab Electron rocket. The 55-pound (25-pound) cubesat is on a pathfinder mission for NASA’s Artemis program, which seeks to construct a sustained human presence at and across the Moon.

Once on the Moon, the NASA-funded CAPSTONE will enter right into a near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO)—a fuel-efficient orbit that takes benefit of impartial gravity factors produced by the Earth and Moon. It’s inside this gravitationally steady orbit that NASA and its companions are planning to construct a lunar house station known as Gateway. CAPSTONE, constructed and designed by Terran Orbital, will function a complicated scout to verify theoretical fashions about this distinctive halo orbit.

The mission acquired off to a rocky begin when a communication situation prevented mission controllers from contacting the probe in early July. The situation was the results of an improperly formatted command, which served to knock out CAPSTONE’s radio. Naturally, a reboot of the system resolved the difficulty. With communications restored, the group was capable of carry out the probe’s first correction maneuver.

On August 26, CAPSTONE reached its farthest level from Earth, or apogee, reaching a distance of 951,908 miles (1.53 million kilometers). CAPSTONE is anticipated to enter into NRHO on November 13, 2022. At least that’s the plan. Fingers are crossed that NASA and Advanced Space will resolve this newest situation with the probe, and that this vital mission will be capable of proceed.

More: NASA’s Artemis Moon Landing Program: Launches, Timeline, and More.