What Is CAPSTONE Mission? – Burning Issues

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Artemis Mission

Under the Artemis lunar exploration program, NASA wants to send the first woman and the next man to the Moon by the year 2024.
ARTEMIS stands for Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence, and Electrodynamics of Moon’s Interaction with the Sun.
The mission was named Artemis after the Greek mythological goddess of the Moon and twin sister to Apollo.
The main objective is to measure what happens when the Sun’s radiation hits our rocky moon, where there is no magnetic field to protect it.

CAPSTONE is a satellite, which is roughly the size of a large microwave oven which will chart a new orbit around the moon to become successful gateway for future projects. The new orbit can be used for a future crewed lunar space station.
Capstone satellite was launched via the Electron rocket that took off from Rocket Lab’s launch facility in New Zealand.
Note: CAPSTONE stands for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment

The capstone satellite will remain in low-Earth orbit for around six days, attached to a custom-designed Photon upper-stage created by Rocket Lab.
After 6 days, the Photon will ignite its engines to leave Earth’s orbit on a path toward deep space, subsequently releasing CAPSTONE to continue on for arrival at the moon roughly three months from now.

Rocket lab has successfully launched 27 mission with 147 satellites in orbits. It has 3 launch pads.
CAPSTONE is Rocket Lab’s first deep space mission, but it won’t be its last. The company is going to deliver two orbital spacecraft to Mars as well for a science mission on behalf of NASA.