This Tuesday at 9:55 PM, Advanced Labs, in partnership with NASA, launched
CAPSTONE, a test run for the orbit of the upcoming Gateway space station. The
launch took place at the Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in Onenui Station, on the
Mahia Peninsula on New Zealand’s North Island.
The mission is quite unique for the government owned agency, NASA.
CAPSTONE will be one of their first collaborations with a privately owned company.
Of course, the mission wasn’t just to launch CAPSTONE into space and hope
it doesn’t collapse. It needed to survive for six months, and if it was lucky, one year.
This endeavor obviously came with a hefty price tag. NASA hired Advanced
Space, a 45-person company on the outskirts of Denver, for 20 million USD. The
actual launch cost about an additional 10 million USD. This resulted in a combined
30 million USD price tag, straight out of the American government’s wallet.
But this operation was cheap compared to others. A failed Israeli operation
run by a nonprofit named Even Beresheet cost 100 million USD, and was still unable
to fulfill its promises, as it was underfunded.
Why was this done in the first place? Well, NASA can explain. “Can we fly
without it? Yes. Is it mandatory? No.” But he clarified, “Any time you can reduce
error bars in your models is always a good thing.” Dan Hartman, the Gateway
program manager, said of CAPSTONE.
Advanced Space hasn’t dipped its toes into building spacecraft yet. The
satellite wasn’t even designed and built by Advanced Space. They purchased it from
Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, a company based in Irvine, California.
This decision helped streamline the design process. “Because we had a
commercial contract with our vendors, when we needed to change something, it
didn’t have to go through a big review of government contracting officials. That
helped from a speed perspective.” Bradley Cheetham, chief executive and president
of Advanced Space, said.
Even now, Advanced Space is looking ahead to its future. “I’m very intrigued
about thinking about how could we go do a similar type thing to Mars. I’m actually
pretty interested personally in Venus, too. I think it doesn’t get enough attention.”
said Bradley Cheetham.
Links to Articles:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/26/science/nasa-capstone-moon-launch.html
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/capstone-launches-to-test-new-orbit-for-nasa-sartemis-moon-missions
https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/28/nasas-capstone-satellite-is-on-its-way-to-the-moonthanks-to-rocketlab/#:~:text=The%20goal%20of%20the%20CAPSTONE,offer%20a%20good%20launch%2
0point
CAPSTONE, a test run for the orbit of the upcoming Gateway space station. The
launch took place at the Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in Onenui Station, on the
Mahia Peninsula on New Zealand’s North Island.
The mission is quite unique for the government owned agency, NASA.
CAPSTONE will be one of their first collaborations with a privately owned company.
Of course, the mission wasn’t just to launch CAPSTONE into space and hope
it doesn’t collapse. It needed to survive for six months, and if it was lucky, one year.
This endeavor obviously came with a hefty price tag. NASA hired Advanced
Space, a 45-person company on the outskirts of Denver, for 20 million USD. The
actual launch cost about an additional 10 million USD. This resulted in a combined
30 million USD price tag, straight out of the American government’s wallet.
But this operation was cheap compared to others. A failed Israeli operation
run by a nonprofit named Even Beresheet cost 100 million USD, and was still unable
to fulfill its promises, as it was underfunded.
Why was this done in the first place? Well, NASA can explain. “Can we fly
without it? Yes. Is it mandatory? No.” But he clarified, “Any time you can reduce
error bars in your models is always a good thing.” Dan Hartman, the Gateway
program manager, said of CAPSTONE.
Advanced Space hasn’t dipped its toes into building spacecraft yet. The
satellite wasn’t even designed and built by Advanced Space. They purchased it from
Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, a company based in Irvine, California.
This decision helped streamline the design process. “Because we had a
commercial contract with our vendors, when we needed to change something, it
didn’t have to go through a big review of government contracting officials. That
helped from a speed perspective.” Bradley Cheetham, chief executive and president
of Advanced Space, said.
Even now, Advanced Space is looking ahead to its future. “I’m very intrigued
about thinking about how could we go do a similar type thing to Mars. I’m actually
pretty interested personally in Venus, too. I think it doesn’t get enough attention.”
said Bradley Cheetham.
Links to Articles:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/26/science/nasa-capstone-moon-launch.html
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/capstone-launches-to-test-new-orbit-for-nasa-sartemis-moon-missions
https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/28/nasas-capstone-satellite-is-on-its-way-to-the-moonthanks-to-rocketlab/#:~:text=The%20goal%20of%20the%20CAPSTONE,offer%20a%20good%20launch%2
0point
