Rocket Lab's moon mission for NASA a success

SATELLITE DEPLOYED: Rocket Lab mission control deployed the Capstone satellite for Nasa from its Mahia base last night — a vital part of a mission to the Moon and Rocket Lab's most complex mission to date. Rocket Lab is already looking further afield to Mars and Venus. Story on page 3 Images supplied

Mahia could now be a launchpad to a mission to Venus after Rocket Lab successfully deployed a pathfinding satellite for NASA on a course to the Moon.

The deployment marks the successful completion of Rocket Lab's first deep space mission, paving the way for the company's upcoming interplanetary missions to Mars and Venus.

Owned and operated by Advanced Space on behalf of NASA, the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (Capstone)) will be the first spacecraft to test the Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) around the Moon.

This is the same orbit intended for NASA's Gateway, a Moon-orbiting outpost that will provide essential support for long-term astronaut lunar missions as part of the Artemis programme.

Rocket Lab's role in the mission took place over two phases.

First, Capstone was successfully launched to low Earth orbit by Rocket Lab's Electron launch vehicle from Mahia on June 28.

From there, Rocket Lab's Lunar Photon spacecraft provided in-space transportation, power, and communications to Capstone. After six days of orbit-raising burns by Lunar Photon's 3D printed HyperCurie engine, Capstone was deployed on its ballistic lunar transfer trajectory to the Moon as planned at 7.18pm last night.

“The Capstone mission marks the beginning of humanity's return to the Moon through NASA's Artemis programme and we're incredibly proud that Rocket Lab has played a key role in that,” said Rocket Lab founder and chief executive Peter Beck.

“The Rocket Lab team has been working on Capstone with NASA and our mission partners for more than two years, developing new small satellite technology in the form of the Lunar Photon spacecraft to make this mission possible, so it's an incredible feeling after all that hard work and innovation to achieve mission success and set Capstone on a course for the Moon.

“This has been Rocket Lab's most complex mission to date and our team has been incredible. We pushed Electron and Photon to their limits and proved it's possible to do big missions with small spacecraft. Now we'll be applying this ground-breaking technology for more interplanetary journeys, including our upcoming missions to Venus and Mars.”

Mr Beck summed the milestone up as “perfect Moon mission success”.

The payload deployment ends Rocket Lab's participation in the Capstone Mission but there could be more deep space adventures in store for the Lunar Photon spacecraft.

Rocket Lab communications director Morgan Bailey said Lunar Photon was “still in great shape” with propellant reserves remaining.

“So, we're looking into secondary missions we could use it for.”

Next year, Rocket lab intends to carry out the first private mission to Venus.

The goal, using an Electron launch vehicle and Photon spacecraft, is to send a probe to around 30 miles' altitude, where Venus' atmospheric conditions are closer to those found on Earth.

Although a launch site had not been determined yet, it was “certainly possible” that mission could launch from the company's Mahia space port, Ms Bailey said.