With approximately one month until NASA’s first launch attempt for the Artemis I mission, teams move closer to finishing operations for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft in the Vehicle Assembly Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA is currently targeting launch for no earlier than Monday, Aug. 29, …
NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) successfully completed its third trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) on Monday. CAPSTONE is taking a long but fuel-efficient route to the Moon, flying about 958,000 miles (1.54 million kilometers) from Earth before looping back around to its near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO). At the completion of the …
Final work continues to prepare the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for Artemis I. Teams have identified placeholder dates for potential launch opportunities. They include: Aug. 29 at 8:33 a.m. EDT (Two-hour launch window); Landing Oct. 10 Sept. 2 at 12:48 p.m. (Two-hour launch window); Landing …
Inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians continue to prepare the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft for Artemis I. During work to repair the source of a hydrogen leak, engineers identified a loose fitting on the inside wall of the rocket’s engine section, where the quick disconnect …
NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) successfully completed its second trajectory correction maneuver starting at about 11:30 a.m. EDT Tuesday. CAPSTONE will perform several such maneuvers during its four-month-long journey to lunar orbit to refine its trajectory to the Moon, with the next one targeted for late July. CAPSTONE is …
The team for NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) is standing down from the trajectory correction maneuver scheduled for July 9 to perform additional analysis on the spacecraft’s performance. The mission team will make a determination whether the maneuver is still needed at this time, and updates will be provided. …
Since the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion arrived back at the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 2, teams extended the access platforms surrounding the rocket and spacecraft to perform repairs and conduct final operations before returning to launch pad 39B for the Artemis I mission. Technicians …
NASA’s CAPSTONE successfully completed its first trajectory correction maneuver, which started at 11:30 a.m. EDT Thursday. This is the first in a series of thruster burns over the next few months to more accurately target CAPSTONE’s transfer orbit to the Moon. The maneuver lasted just over 11 minutes and changed the spacecraft’s velocity by about 45 …
After a thorough review, teams have determined what led to CAPSTONE’s communications issue that began on July 4. During commissioning of NASA’s CAPSTONE (short for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) spacecraft, the Deep Space Network team noted inconsistent ranging data. While investigating this, the spacecraft operations team attempted to access diagnostic …
Following communications issues, mission teams for NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) have re-established contact with the spacecraft through NASA’s Deep Space Network. Data received from CAPSTONE shows that the spacecraft is in good health and operated safely on its own while it was out of contact with Earth. Teams …
