NASA ends its participation in the lunar orbiter CAPSTONE
After four years of operation, NASA has terminated its participation in the privately built and operated lunar orbiter CAPSTONE.
The orbiter was built jointly by Terran Orbital and Rocket Lab, and launched by Rocket Lab. In space it was operated not by NASA but by the private company Advanced Space. On its way to the Moon Advanced Space’s engineers lost contact with the spacecraft twice, but were able to re-establish communications in time to save the mission, get it into orbit, where it spent four years testing a host of technologies NASA then planned to use in its Artemis program.
The orbiter is not dead however. Advanced Space “will continue to use the spacecraft as a technology development testbed.”
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