NASA Restores Connection With CAPSTONE
On Wednesday morning, NASA announced that the mission team had re-established contact with CAPSTONE.
NASA is having trouble making contact with its new CAPSTONE spacecraft, a tiny probe that has just lifted off from Earth to test a new orbit around the moon. Because of these communications problems, NASA had to delay a planned maneuver that would have helped refine its path into deep space. The agency is still trying to re-establish contact.
CAPSTONE is the first mission of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to eventually send humans back to the moon. As part of this return to the Moon, NASA plans to build a new space station in orbit around the Moon. But the orbit that NASA wants to use is unique; this is a particularly long path that has never been used by a spacecraft before. CAPSTONE is intended to be used as a pioneering mission when the spacecraft enters that orbit and gives NASA some experience before the agency starts building its new station.
