An artist's impression of Capstone orbiting the moon. Photo / Supplied
We're counting down to the first moon mission to be launched from New Zealand soil.
Nasa has today put a new date on its Capstone mission to lunar orbit - May - and released an animation of how its Rocket Lab-launched micro-satellite will look in orbit around the Moon.
One of Rocket Lab's Electron rockets will launch the Nasa microsat from Mahia, then one of the Kiwi-American company's Photon spacecraft will ferry it into lunar orbit.
The special, experimental orbit will bring Capstone within 1600km of one lunar pole on its near pass and 70,000 from the other pole at its peak every seven days - requiring less propulsion capability for spacecraft flying to and from the Moon's surface than other circular orbits, according to Nasa's briefing.
The mission is laying the groundwork for Nasa's planned "Gateway" small space station, which will follow the same "Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit" around the Moon.
Both missions are part of Nasa's wider Artemis programme to return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2025, all going to schedule (which it hasn't so far, amid the pandemic. Capstone was previously planned for 'late 2021").
The earlier generation of Moon missions involved multi-million budgets. But thanks to the march of technology - and some Kiwi no. 8 wire thinking - the Capstone micro-sat will go into lunar orbit on a micro-budget, in aerospace terms. Rocket Lab earlier disclosed that its Capstone contract is worth US$9.95 million ($14m).
A lot more work is on the way, however, including a 2024 mission to Mars, which will see two Nasa-funded Rocket Lab Photons go into orbit around the Red Planet (Rocket Lab says it won't put a dollar-value on that contract until closer to launch).
And at its fourth-quarter results briefing last week, Rocket Lab said its overall forward-bookings for launches and space services had swelled from US$82m at the end of 2020 to US$241m by December 31, 2021 and today stands at US$545m - thanks in large part to a US$143m contract, announced this week, to design and manufacture 17 half-tonne satellites for North American communications network operator GlobalStar.
But despite its fatter contract book, and a strong revenue increase for the December quarter, Rocket Lab's Nasdaq-listed stock continued to be under pressure, caught up in the general market pullback amid the Ukraine crisis and inflation fears. Shares closed down 0.94 per cent to US$8.40 on Friday for a US$3.8 billion market cap.
For those who are willing to strap in and stomach some risk, Morgan Stanley recently initiated coverage on Rocket Lab with a "buy" rating and a 12-month target of US$17.00.
Matt Leibowitz, chief executive of retail trading platform Stake, told the Herald last week that while Rocket Lab's stock price is sitting below the level it listed at (US$10.00), the revenue increase and big jump in forward bookings were positives, as was the resumption of missions after a pandemic-hit first half.
"In a year that was disrupted by Covid, they'll be chuffed to still be heading upward off the back of six missions in the final quarter of 2021," Leibowitz said.
The CEO said Rocket Lab had been Stake's third most-traded stock since its August IPO.
"Space is an area of intense interest for investors on Stake, and Rocket Lab wants to be an end-to-end space provider. Already, 38 per cent of launches in 2021 had Rocket Lab technology involved, and they'll want that number to grow. If they can pull it off, they may just blast off into the stratosphere."