NASA loses communication with its new lunar probe CAPSTONE

July 6. () –

NASA experiments communication problems with its CAPSTONE mission en route to the Moon, a cubeSat sent to study a new lunar orbit for the future Gateway station.

After the initial deployment of CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) July 4, the spacecraft successfully deployed solar panels, stabilized and began charging its onboard battery.

CAPSTONE’s propulsion system also readied for the spacecraft’s first maneuver. CAPSTONE, the size of a microwave oven, made initial contact with the DSN (the Deep Space Network) ground station in Madrid, followed by partial contact with the Goldstone ground station in California. From these contacts mission operators have been able to determine the approximate position and speed of CAPSTONE in space.

As a result of communication problems, CAPSTONE’s first trajectory correction maneuver, originally scheduled for the morning of July 5, was delayed. This maneuver is the first in a series that is designed to make small corrections to increase the accuracy of the transfer orbit to the Moon, and the spacecraft remains in the intended general ballistic lunar transfer while awaiting this trajectory correction.

The team has good trajectory data for the spacecraft based on the ground station’s first full pass and partial second pass with the Deep Space Network. “If necessary, the mission has enough fuel to delay the post-separation trajectory correction maneuver for several days,” NASA reports in an update.