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WELLINGTON (New Zealand), July 5 (AP) A microwave-microwave-sized satellite successfully escaped its orbit around Earth and headed toward the moon on Monday, the latest in NASA’s plans to land astronauts on the lunar surface again. action. .
This has been an unusual journey for Capstone satellites. It was launched from New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula six days ago by Rocket Lab on one of their small Electron rockets. It will take another four months for the satellite to reach the Moon because it uses the least amount of energy to cruise.
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Rocket Lab founder Peter Baker told The Associated Press that it’s hard to put into words his excitement.
“It can take a while to get in. The project took us two, two and a half years, and it was very, very difficult to execute,” he said. “So to see it all come together tonight and see that spacecraft on its way to the moon, it’s absolutely epic.”
Baker said the relatively low cost of the mission — NASA calls it $32.7 million — marks the beginning of a new era in space exploration.
“For tens of millions of dollars, there are now rockets and spacecraft that can take you to the moon, to asteroids, to Venus, to Mars,” Baker said. “It’s a crazy ability like never before.”
If the rest of the mission is successful, the Capstone satellite will send back vital information within months as the first of a new orbit around the moon, known as a near-linear halo orbit: a stretched egg-shaped orbit at one end, one close to the moon and the other stay away from it.
Eventually, NASA plans to put a space station called the Gateway into the orbital path from which astronauts can descend to the lunar surface as part of its Artemis program.
The advantage of the new orbit, Baker said, is that it minimizes fuel use and allows the satellite — or the space station — to maintain constant contact with Earth.
The Electron rocket launched from New Zealand on June 28 carried a second spacecraft called Photon, which separated nine minutes later. The satellite was carried in photons for six days, and the spacecraft’s engines fired periodically to make it orbit further and further away from Earth.
Monday’s final engine blast freed the photon from Earth’s gravity and sent the satellite on its way. The plan now is for the 25-kilogram (55-pound) satellite to fly far past the moon before returning to its new lunar orbit on Nov. 13. The satellite will use a small amount of fuel to make some planned trajectory correction methods along the orbit.
Baker said they will decide in the next few days what to do with the Photon, which has done its job but has a little fuel left in the tank.
“We can actually do a lot of really cool tasks with it,” Baker said.
For this mission, NASA is partnering with two commercial companies: California-based Rocket Lab and Colorado-based Advanced Space, which owns and operates the Capstone satellite. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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