“Going to the moon is no joke.” So said Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck, just days before the planned launch of CAPSTONE, a watershed mission for both NASA and the private space industry.
The mission is important, though you might not assume so based on the stats of the CAPSTONE CubeSat on its own: It’s about the size of a microwave oven and weighs in at just 55 pounds. But the end goal of the spacecraft’s roughly six-month stint in lunar orbit is to chart a favorable trajectory for a crewed station that will orbit the moon. Once established, that platform, dubbed Gateway, could unlock a whole new chapter in human space exploration.
Consider CAPSTONE (which stands for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) the first in-space step in NASA’s Artemis program, an ambitious plan to return humans to the moon by the middle of this decade. The Gateway platform could be used as a way station for lunar landers, a resupply junction for astronauts exploring the moon — or even a transfer point for missions to Mars and beyond.
Image Credits: NASA
The mission isn’t just a big deal for the Artemis program and public space exploration: Notably, it’s the result of a patchwork of collaboration between private industry and the space agency. The list of partners on NASA’s website for the mission includes:
And, of course, Rocket Lab for the launch services.
CAPSTONE is launching aboard a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from the company’s site on New Zealand’s remote Māhia Peninsula. “This is the highest mass and the highest performance Electron has ever had to fly by quite some margin,” Beck said. “The vehicle is absolutely stretched to its limits with respect to performance.”
In addition to actually launching the mission, Rocket Lab developed a special variant of its Photon spacecraft for this endeavor, which it’s calling the Lunar Photon. That spacecraft will conduct a series of orbits over a period of around six to eight days, increasing the velocity and apogee of the orbit over time. Then, Photon will perform the final burn, called the trans-lunar injection, which will set it on its course to the moon. Around 20 minutes after the injection, Photon and CAPSTONE will separate and the CubeSat alone will conduct the remaining maneuvers to reach its target orbit around the moon.
“The moon is a long way away,” Beck said, referring to the complexities of Photon’s maneuvers. “You’re traveling at huge velocities. So it only takes a smallest fraction of an angle error or a velocity error, and you just shoot way past where you need to be.”
“It’s like firing a bullet millions of kilometers, and it’s got to be exactly in the right place.”
An unusual orbit
The exact orbit that CAPSTONE will be exploring is called a near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO). That orbit, in the shape of a necklace, will bring CAPSTONE as close as 1,000 miles to the moon’s surface and as far away as 40,000 miles. Although the shape is odd, it’s a very stable orbit, which means greater efficiency and less use of propellant. NRHO was up against competing orbits, including low lunar orbit and distant retrograde orbit, as the ideal trajectory for Gateway; but as NASA explains, NRHO is a “best of both worlds” option that’ll provide astronauts with easy access to the lunar surface, a continuous line of sight to (and communication with) Earth and access to deep space.
But testing the NRHO orbit is not the only point of the mission. The CubeSat will also help NASA understand navigation, or how to generate an accurate estimation of Gateway’s trajectory, and station-keeping.
“Because the NRHO is marginally stable, Gateway and CAPSTONE will both require a gentle ‘nudge’ about once a week to stay in orbit,” Ethan Kayser, CAPSTONE mission design lead at Advanced Space, explained in a Reddit post. “CAPSTONE will be using the same strategy to design and execute these stationkeeping maneuvers, which occur once each revolution.” The eight propulsion thrusters built by Stella Exploration will be key to conducting these maneuvers.
CAPSTONE will arrive at its lunar orbit on November 13. After a roughly six-month orbital mission, NASA plans to crash the spacecraft into the moon at the end of its life. The launch is set to take place during an instantaneous launch window at 5:55 AM EDT on Tuesday, June 28, so be sure to follow TechCrunch for live coverage and reporting on the outocome of the mission launch.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
