Rocket Lab about to shoot for the Moon

Friday, 3 June 2022

Rocket Lab’s Moon mission will be broadcast to a large audience by Nasa TV, as well as streamed online.

Rocket Lab is preparing to venture far further into space than it has been before.

All the 146 communications and imaging satellites Rocket Lab has launched for its clients to date have been into a relatively low Earth orbit.

But in June, in a launch window opening on Monday week, Rocket Lab will attempt to use the Earth’s gravitational field to slingshot a spacecraft around the Earth so it can put a satellite into an orbit around the Moon for Nasa.

It won’t create a record for commercial space flight. In 2015, a spacecraft launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket travelled more than 1.2 million kilometres to deploy the Deep Space Climate Observatory into an orbit between the Earth and the Sun for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Rocket Lab successfully catch falling rocket booster with a helicopter.

But it marks the beginning of business away from Earth for Rocket Lab.

* Rocket Lab wins Nasa contract to provide 'ride to the moon' for small satellite mission

* Rocket Lab plans to shoot satellites to the moon and beyond with new 'Photon' spaceship

Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck says “launching from Māhia” to the Moon will be a historic moment.

“This is a mission all New Zealanders can and should be proud of. We're going to the Moon and so few countries can say that.”

What is the Nasa satellite?

It’s called Capstone. It weights 25kg and it’s about the size of a microwave oven, ignoring its solar panels.

Capstone has been flown to New Zealand and is now at Rocket Lab’s launchpad on the Māhia Peninsula near Gisborne.

What is the satellite for?

Nasa wants to test whether the orbit that Capstone will be aiming for will be a good one for its planned multibillion-dollar lunar-orbiting space station, Gateway.

Gateway, the first parts of which may be launched in 2024, will be designed to support future Moon missions, including ‘peopled’ missions to the lunar surface, and it may also serve as a staging point for missions to Mars.

Capstone’s main mission is to orbit the Moon for six months while testing its ability to communicate with Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter which is in a different orbit around the Moon.

Between them, the spacecraft will test a navigation system that is designed to let spacecraft calculate their exact position in space and their position relative to other spacecraft without needing a line of sight back to Earth.

“The Moon has remained virtually unexplored for the past 4½ billion years,” Beck says.

“It’s a museum of the history of the solar system. We stand to learn so much about our own planet by enabling further exploration of the Moon.”

What’s special about the orbit?

Nasa is expecting to spend tens of billions of dollars establishing a regular human presence on and around the moon.

Capstone will circle the Moon every seven days in an oval, coming as close as 1600 kilometres to one lunar pole at its nearest approach, but as far away as 70,000km at the furthest point of its orbit.

Nasa says the elliptical orbit will see Capstone maintain a position where the gravities of Earth and the Moon will be balance, meaning it is an orbit that should be very stable and which should also require minimal energy to maintain.

What happens after the six months is up?

Capstone is expected to remain operational for about another year, after its main mission, conducting secondary experiments.

Then it will be disposed of, either by being flown into the Moon or sent into a deep space orbit around the Sun.

When we will know if the mission is a success?

No earlier than in the spring.

It will take about four months for a Rocket Lab Proton spacecraft that will detach from the Electron rocket to transport Capstone to its lunar orbit.

Is this mission a big deal for Rocket Lab?

Rocket Lab is being paid just under US$10 million (NZ$15.4m) for the Capstone mission, which is small beer when put next to the company’s US$4.7b share market value.

But it is a rare example of Nasa teaming up with a private rocket company for space exploration and will see it play an early part in a mammoth space project.

“When you think of Moon missions you think of the enormous Saturn V rockets of the 1960s and billions of dollars, but we’re going to the same destination with a carbon fibre rocket and our Photon spacecraft the size of a bar fridge, all for just a fraction of that cost,” Beck says.

“As technology continues to shrink and with each advance in aerospace engineering, we can achieve so much with un-crewed missions like Capstone. That saves time and money, making exploration much more accessible.”

Rocket Lab will also have a big audience for its June launch. As well as being ‘livestreamed’, the launch will be broadcast in the United States and Europe on the Nasa TV satellite channel.

“Going to the Moon is no joke. It is incredibly hard, and it has taken an enormous amount of effort and dedication from the team to get us to this point,” Beck says.

What’s next?

Next year, Beck hopes Rocket Lab will launch its own self-funded Electron mission to Venus to look for signs of life.

That mission would see Rocket Lab switch from playing a supporting role in space exploration to doing exploring of its own.