NASA's tiny Moon probe completes first orbital maintenance maneuver

After more than a month at the Moon, NASA's CAPSTONE, short for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, has successfully completed its first orbital maintenance maneuver (OMM).

"Originally, these OMMs were planned to occur once per orbit. But since CAPSTONE has been doing so well after insertion into its near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO), we've been able to skip them up to now. In the future, we'll see whether we need to perform them as frequently as originally planned, but CAPSTONE continues to perform well as the mission continues, "Advanced Space, which owns and operates the mission for NASA, tweeted on Wednesday.

The CAPSTONE mission launched on June 28, 2022, aboard a Rocket Lab's Electron rocket from the company's Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. The microwave oven-sized CubeSat weigh just 55 pounds.

The mission is designed to test the dynamics of NRHO by demonstrating how to enter into and operate in this special orbit - the intended orbit for Gateway, a lunar space station that will support NASA's Artemis program.

MISSION UPDATE: Last week #CAPSTONE completed its first orbital maintenance maneuver after more than a month at the Moon. 🌔 These planned maneuvers were expected once per orbit, but were skipped until now as the spacecraft is doing so well! pic.twitter.com/xtIt0bZbYE

— NASA Ames (@NASAAmes) December 28, 2022

What's next?

In January 2023, CAPSTONE will demonstrate an autonomous navigation software, Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System (CAPS), at the Moon. If successful, this peer-to-peer navigation and communication technology will allow future spacecraft to determine their location without having to rely exclusively on tracking from Earth.

This capability, as NASA says, could enable future technology demonstrations to perform on their own without support from the ground and allow ground-based antennas to prioritize valuable science data over more routine operational tracking.