Terran Orbital Corporation, a global leader in satellite-based solutions primarily serving the aerospace and defense industries, today announced CAPSTONE's recent successful completion of its primary mission: navigating to and within the Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO), and performing the initial successful test of the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System (CAPS) in coordination with the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). In addition, CAPSTONE imaged the Moon.
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Terran Orbital-Developed CAPSTONE Completes Primary Mission
The satellite successfully navigated to and imaged the Moon
Terran Orbital Corporation, a global leader in satellite-based solutions primarily serving the aerospace and defense industries, today announced CAPSTONE's recent successful completion of its primary mission: navigating to and within the Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO), and performing the initial successful test of the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System (CAPS) in coordination with the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). In addition, CAPSTONE imaged the Moon.
Designed, built, and integrated by Terran Orbital and led by Advanced Space, the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, otherwise known as CAPSTONE, is laying the groundwork for future lunar exploration by demonstrating operations in NRHO.
CAPSTONE has provided NASA with rapid and low-cost data about operations in its NRHO around the Moon, the same orbit planned for Gateway – a space station that will provide astronauts with access to the lunar surface in support of NASA's Artemis missions.
CAPSTONE operations are shared between Terran Orbital and Advanced Space for NASA.
In addition to navigating to and within the NRHO, imaging the Moon, and performing the CAPS initial demonstration tests, the CAPSTONE mission has achieved many milestones since entering NRHO, including:
- 28 successful orbits
- 7 on-orbit maneuvers
- 89 published orbit determination navigation solutions
- Collected more than 315,000 measurements from the Deep Space Network including the site at Morehead State University. CAPSTONE was the first mission to use Morehead State University – this capacity added to DSN was critical to support the mission.
- 6 lunar eclipses with a maximum duration of 74.32 minutes
“Terran Orbital is thrilled CAPSTONE completed the first six months of its primary mission,” said Terran Orbital Co-Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer Marc Bell.
“An extraordinary team developed a truly extraordinary spacecraft. We are grateful to Advanced Space for their partnership in developing CAPSTONE and we are thankful to NASA for pioneering the Artemis program. Together, we've embarked on the next era of lunar exploration.”
About Terran Orbital
Terran Orbital is a leading manufacturer of satellite products primarily serving the aerospace and defense industries.
Terran Orbital provides end-to-end satellite solutions by combining satellite design, production, launch planning, mission operations, and on-orbit support to meet the needs of the most demanding military, civil, and commercial customers
