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Updated September 13th, 2022 at 17:48 IST

NASA-funded CAPSTONE spacecraft goes tumbling into space; teams evaluating anomaly

NASA's CAPSTONE spacecraft encountered an unresolved issue that sent it tumbling into space. The spacecraft, however, is on its intended path to the Moon.

Reported by: Harsh Vardhan
NASA
Image: NASA | Image:self
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Just two days after revealing the status of the CAPSTONE mission, NASA revealed that the spacecraft went tumbling into space due to the recent anomaly that it encountered. According to the mission partners (NASA, Advanced Space and Terran Orbital), the issue occurred on September 8 during or after the third course-correction maneuver. 

Short for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning Systems Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, CAPSTONE was launched on June 28 to test the near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) around the Moon. On a four-month journey to the Moon, it will reach its destination on November 13. 

What issue did CAPSTONE encounter?

In a recent update, Advanced Space revealed that the issue, the origin of which is yet to be ascertained, caused the spacecraft to tumble beyond the capacity of the onboard reaction wheels to control and counter. The reaction wheels are components that spin rapidly to maintain the orientation of the spacecraft in space. 

The glitch also resulted in the spacecraft briefly losing communication with ground controllers. However, when the telemetry data was received by NASA’s Deep Space Network (three radio antennas in the US, Europe and Australia), the mission teams found that CAPSTONE’s onboard computer systems were periodically resetting, and the spacecraft was using more power than it was generating from its solar panels.

“Using NASA’s Deep Space Network, the combined mission team re-established contact with CAPSTONE and reconfigured the spacecraft’s systems to stabilize the situation while recovery plans are evaluated’, NASA said in a statement.

As of now, the spacecraft continues to remain in safe mode and it is now generating more power from its solar panels than the amount being used. The engineers also confirmed that the spacecraft is in the intended trajectory, which means that the course correction maneuver was complete or almost complete when the anomaly emerged. Moving forward, the teams would now attempt a de-tumble operation to regain attitude control of the spacecraft. If successful, the CAPSTONE will gain control over its orientation, allowing it to orient the solar panels to the sun to fully charge the batteries of the power spent unnecessarily.

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Published September 13th, 2022 at 17:48 IST

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