In the coming months, a giant rocket will send a capsule without any humans around the moon and back to Earth. Robots will be deployed on the surface of the moon to collect data, especially about the ice frozen in the polar regions of the space rock. In 2-3 years, astronauts will return there, over 50 years since the last Apollo moon landing. This is all part of NASA’s next moon program, Artemis, named after Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology.
This entire plan starts with one small spacecraft, called the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE. CAPSTONE will not hold any human passengers, as it its only 55 pounds and the size of a microwave. Its purpose is to scout out where the lunar orbit is that will eventually hold the space station named Gateway.
Gateway will orbit around the moon, acting as a place where astronauts will stop before heading to the moon’s surface.
NASA scientists have decided that the best place for Gateway is in what is known as the near-rectilinear halo orbit, which is kept at a 90-degree angle to the line-of-sight view from Earth, so communications will not be cut off.
However, finding this orbit is a problem. “The biggest uncertainty is actually knowing where you are,” said Bradley Cheetman, chief executive and president of Advanced Space. “You never in space actually know where you are. So you always have an estimate of where it is with some uncertainty around it.”
This is where CAPSTONE comes in. NASA can use CAPSTONE to locate where the orbit is, so they know where they need to put Gateway when they launch it.
CAPSTONE is unique from all of NASA’s other space missions because they are partnering with a much smaller company, Advanced Space, to launch it. This allows for costs to be much cheaper than ever before. The contract between the two companies only costs about $20 million, and the launch is only $10 million.
“It’s going to be under $30 million in under three years,” said NASA executive Christopher Baker. “Relatively rapid and relatively low cost.”
This is less than 7% of the cost of Apollo 14, which cost $450 million, and even a third of the cost of Beresheet, an effort by an Israeli nonprofit for a moon landing in 2019, which cost $100 million.
CAPSTONE is a stepping stone that will eventually lead to the rest of the Artemis program, where astronauts will return to the moon after half a decade since Apollo 14.
This entire plan starts with one small spacecraft, called the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE. CAPSTONE will not hold any human passengers, as it its only 55 pounds and the size of a microwave. Its purpose is to scout out where the lunar orbit is that will eventually hold the space station named Gateway.
Gateway will orbit around the moon, acting as a place where astronauts will stop before heading to the moon’s surface.
NASA scientists have decided that the best place for Gateway is in what is known as the near-rectilinear halo orbit, which is kept at a 90-degree angle to the line-of-sight view from Earth, so communications will not be cut off.
However, finding this orbit is a problem. “The biggest uncertainty is actually knowing where you are,” said Bradley Cheetman, chief executive and president of Advanced Space. “You never in space actually know where you are. So you always have an estimate of where it is with some uncertainty around it.”
This is where CAPSTONE comes in. NASA can use CAPSTONE to locate where the orbit is, so they know where they need to put Gateway when they launch it.
CAPSTONE is unique from all of NASA’s other space missions because they are partnering with a much smaller company, Advanced Space, to launch it. This allows for costs to be much cheaper than ever before. The contract between the two companies only costs about $20 million, and the launch is only $10 million.
“It’s going to be under $30 million in under three years,” said NASA executive Christopher Baker. “Relatively rapid and relatively low cost.”
This is less than 7% of the cost of Apollo 14, which cost $450 million, and even a third of the cost of Beresheet, an effort by an Israeli nonprofit for a moon landing in 2019, which cost $100 million.
CAPSTONE is a stepping stone that will eventually lead to the rest of the Artemis program, where astronauts will return to the moon after half a decade since Apollo 14.
