NASA has canceled plans to launch a small CubeSat to the moon on Monday (June 27) to give it more time to check its Rocket Lab booster for the flight.
The US space agency announced today that it is no longer targeting a Monday launch for the new CAPSTONE CubeSat to the Moon using a Rocket Lab-built Electron Booster. The mission, led by the company Advanced Space, was scheduled to lift off at 6am EDT (1000 GMT) Monday from a platform on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula.
“NASA, Rocket Lab and Advanced Space are descending from the June 27 launch attempt of the CAPSTONE mission to the Moon to allow Rocket Lab to conduct final system checks,” NASA officials wrote in a June 26 update (opens in new tab). “The teams evaluate the weather and other factors to determine the date of the next launch attempt.”
Related: NASA’s CAPSTONE lunar mission is designed to go where no CubeSat has gone before
The closest possible launch date for the microwave-sized CAPSTONE is Tuesday, June 28, but NASA and its partners could launch the mission anytime before July 27 and still ensure the CubeSat reaches the moon on November 13, the agency said. The mission has been repeatedly postponed since 2021, first due to issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic and later due to the need for further verification of the Cubesat and its Rocket Lab booster.
CAPSTONE, or Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, is a small, 25-kilogram spacecraft designed to test a novel path around the moon, dubbed the near-linear halo orbit. The orbit, which follows an extremely elliptical path around the moon, is the same that NASA intends to use for its proposed Gateway space station for astronauts under the Artemis program.
As part of the mission, CAPSTONE will launch with a Rocket Lab Electron Booster and use the company’s photon stage to aid its journey to the moon. It is Rocket Lab’s first deep space mission with Photon.
If all goes well, CAPSTONE will separate from its photon ride six days after launch and slowly make its way to the Moon over about four months. Once the spacecraft reaches its final orbit, it is expected to spend at least six months conducting navigation and communications experiments as part of its $30 million mission. It will fly up to 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the moon and up to 70,000 kilometers (43,500 miles) from the lunar surface.
“The next launch opportunity within the current period is June 28,” NASA officials wrote in the update. “CAPSTONE’s trajectory design means the spacecraft will reach its lunar orbit on November 13, regardless of launch date, within the current timeframe, which offers daily launch opportunities through July 27.”
Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik. follow us @spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.