The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE, is a CubeSat that will fly a special orbit around the Moon intended for NASAs future Artemis lunar outpost Gateway. Its six-month mission will help launch a new age of deep area exploration. Credit: NASA Ames Research
Following the current upgrade on CAPSTONE, objective owner and operator Advanced Space has actually launched an upgrade on the situation. Check out the full mission upgrade from Advanced Space.
CAPSTONE suffered an issue that caused the spacecraft to topple beyond the capacity of the onboard reaction wheels to counter and control. This took place throughout or quickly after a planned trajectory correction maneuver on September 8.
After this happened, CAPSTONE was trying to communicate with the ground for around 24 hours before any telemetry was recovered. After information was gotten, mission controllers found that the spacecraft was toppling and the onboard computer system systems were occasionally resetting. In addition, the spacecraft was using more power than it was producing from its solar panels.
By NASA
September 12, 2022
The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE, is a CubeSat that will fly an unique orbit around the Moon meant for NASAs future Artemis lunar station Gateway. After this happened, CAPSTONE was trying to interact with the ground for around 24 hours before any telemetry was recuperated. The combined objective team– including Advanced Space, Terran Orbital, Stellar Exploration, and NASA– re-established contact with CAPSTONE utilizing NASAs Deep Space Network (DSN) and reconfigured the spacecrafts systems to support the scenario while healing strategies are evaluated. If the detumble is successful, it would provide CAPSTONE control over its orientation.
The combined mission group– consisting of Advanced Space, Terran Orbital, Stellar Exploration, and NASA– re-established contact with CAPSTONE utilizing NASAs Deep Space Network (DSN) and reconfigured the spacecrafts systems to stabilize the circumstance while recovery strategies are assessed. CAPSTONE stays in safe mode. Nevertheless, it is now power favorable, meaning that it is creating more power from the solar panels than the system is utilizing. According to navigation data collected after the issue started, the September 8 trajectory correction maneuver was likely completed or almost complete when the problem occurred. The spacecraft stays on the intended trajectory and is on course to its near rectilinear halo orbit at the Moon.
While work continues to diagnose the cause of the concern, the group is preparing CAPSTONE to attempt to gain back attitude control of the spacecraft through a detumble operation. This detumble operation was successfully demonstrated after separation from the launch upper phase in July. If the detumble achieves success, it would provide CAPSTONE control over its orientation. This would permit it to orient the solar panels to the Sun to fully charge the batteries of the power utilized throughout the detumble. After that, the spacecraft would orient to the ground and await additional directions. These recovery operations will be additional evaluated over the coming days. Recovery timing will be assisted by the data and analysis readily available in order to make the most of the probability of an effective spacecraft operation.
Updates will be supplied as available.