The award prolongs the CAPSTONE™ mission. CAPSTONE™ is currently flying at the Moon and recently marked its 100th orbit in the near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO).
WESTMINSTER, CO, 6 October 2024 – Advanced Space’s pioneering Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE™) satellite completed its original 18-month mission for NASA this spring and has been awarded an extension of the mission program. The mission extension includes a base period to continue nominal mission operations, further demonstrate Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System (CAPS™) experiments, and perform feasibility analysis for high-priority experiments in support of NASA’s technology needs. The CAPSTONE™ mission has been operating at the Moon for 670+ days performing critical navigation and operations experiments in cislunar space.
Launched on June 28, 2022, the spacecraft’s insertion maneuver at the Moon was then completed on November 18, 2022. CAPSTONE™ spent the subsequent 18 months accomplishing all of its operational objectives while also taking on some additional roles. The platform has served as a critical test bed to enable spacecraft autonomy. This includes a demonstration of a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence/machine learning software.
Advanced Space will work with spacecraft operations partners at Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems (a Terran Orbital Corporation) to execute on the contract. The program will also utilize the support from NASA’s Deep Space Network, so the combined CAPSTONE™ operations team can continue flying CAPSTONE™ consistent with the documented approaches and system interfaces utilized since it launched over two years ago. This team is responsible for monitoring the spacecraft’s performance and system performance while also processing observation data generated by the DSN to generate state estimates of the spacecraft. This information is utilized to evaluate the need for and design maneuvers to maintain the spacecraft’s orbit.
The combined mission operations team will continue to collaborate with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center through a recently extended Space Act Agreement to evaluate, and when appropriate, conduct opportunities for cross-link data collection between the two spacecraft. Combined with one-way uplink data collected on all scheduled tracking passes, this information will continue to be evaluated for maturation and commercialization of Advanced Space’s CAPS™ technology, developed over 8 years ago.
Furthermore, utilizing existing team expertise on both the CAPSTONE mission and overall mission systems engineering, the Advanced Space team will work with external partners and vendors to evaluate the feasibility and quantify the cost and schedule of further experiments to be conducted utilizing the CAPSTONE spacecraft and/or data collected by the CAPSTONE spacecraft. This work will result in thoroughly documented feasibility as well as cost and schedule estimates for implementation.
Bradley Cheetham, Advanced Space’s President and CEO, “In five years, CAPSTONE has gone from a bright idea by a small business to a mission that continues well past its expected end date. I remain grateful to the trust NASA has placed in us to help enable the future of lunar exploration, development, and settlement.”
Thank you to NASA, our mission partners, and everyone who has supported us through this journey. We look forward to ongoing operations of the spacecraft at the Moon and future missions it will support.