CAPSTONE exposed in lunar Sunrise: CAPSTONE will fly in cislunar area– the orbital area near and around theMoon The objective will show an ingenious spacecraft-to-spacecraft navigation service at the Moon from a near rectilinear halo orbit slated for Artemis’Gateway Credit: Illustration by NASA/Daniel Rutter
On September 8, the CAPSTONE spacecraft performed a prepared trajectory correction maneuver. An concern took place near completion of that maneuver that put CAPSTONE into safe mode. Later, navigation information showed that the spacecraft was toppling and objective controllers discovered that the onboard computer system systems were regularly resetting. Initial healing efforts were equipment towards enhancing solar energy and heating of the propulsion system to bring back temperature levels to above the functional limitation In preparation for a healing operation, they had the ability to enhance spacecraft thermal conditions for the propellant and other important systems while preserving favorable power generation.
The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) objective group is continuing to work towards healing of the spacecraft orientation control. This work consists of gathering details from the spacecraft, running simulations, and refining healing strategies. CAPSTONE is presently power favorable. This suggests that it is creating more power from its photovoltaic panels than the spacecraft systems are utilizing. The spacecraft stays in a steady condition on track to the Moon.
