Māhia to the Moon: Nasa jets in to talk lunar landings before crucial Rocket Lab launch

Wednesday, 1 June 2022

Rocket Lab and Nasa’s ‘Mission to Moon’ is set to launch sometime in the next few weeks, with the launch window opening on June 13.

Rocket Lab’s upcoming lunar launch will be the next “big first step” towards humans returning to the Moon.

Launching one of its Electron rockets from its pad in Māhia, in northern Hawke’s Bay, Rocket Lab will attempt to put a satellite into orbit around the Moon as part of a precursor to Nasa’s Artemis programme.

It marks a significant milestone in New Zealand’s space history as well as globally. The last manned mission to the moon, Apollo 17, took place fifty years ago in 1972.

Nasa’s launch services mission manager Norman Phelps described it as a historic event. “This is a big deal mission. This is the first step to Nasa returning to the moon with the Artemis programme. And I think that it's really cool that New Zealand is playing a part in it.”

Rocket Lab’s upcoming ‘Mission to the Moon’ marks a significant step towards Nasa returning peopled missions to the moon and beyond.

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About the size of a microwave oven, Nasa's Capstone satellite aims to check an orbit for a future lunar space station.

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The aerospace engineer arrived in New Zealand early last month, ahead of the upcoming mission to deliver the satellite called Capstone, (which stands for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment), into space.

Capstone will be the first spacecraft to test an elliptical lunar orbit. It is set to be launched in the net few weeks with the launch window opening from June 13.

Nasa’s mission manager Norman Phelps talks to students at Te Mahia School, a few kilometres down the road from where the ‘historical’ launch will take place at Rocket Lab’s launch pad.

“The cool thing about this orbit is that it takes advantage of a precise balance point of the gravities of Earth and the Moon, really minimising the energy that the spacecraft needs to maintain that orbit,” Phelps explained.

“The orbit also provides a continuous unobstructed view of Earth, so this means you actually are in constant communication with Earth.”

Nasa plans to use the same path taken by Capstone for Gateway, a space station which will be used to help provide moon access for astronauts as part of the Artemis programme. A sister mission to Apollo, Artemis aims to land the first woman and the first person of colour on the Moon.

Rocket Lab’s education programme lead Felicity Powell explains how the upcoming mission will work to students at Wairoa College.

“It actually makes it pretty ideal place to stage for missions to the Moon … where we're actually going to put a Moon base there in the future.”

About the size of a microwave oven, Capstone will also test a navigation system that uses a Nasa spaceraft that’s already orbiting the Moon – the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter – to calculate its position, without relying on ground stations for navigation support.

Rocket Lab successfully catch falling rocket booster with a helicopter.

Phelps spent the past few days visiting local schools ahead of the launch, where students were encouraged to reach for the stars – literally. “It was really cool to see how children their eyes light up when you talk about space the moon.”

Asked if any of the students he’d met could be future rocket scientists, he said “definitely”.

Accompanying him, Rocket Lab’s education programme lead Felicity Powell emphasised to the students at Wairoa College they didn’t need advanced degrees to work in the space industry. Many Rocket Lab employees have trade qualifications.

“That's really exciting because then they think, ‘Oh, I could actually just do a two-year trade qualification and I could be building those things that are going to space.”

She told students they could be part of world leading technology from right here in their backyard.

She said Rocket Lab was different compared with other space sector companies in that it operates from a private launch pad on the isolated Māhia peninsula, about 30 minutes drive from Wairoa College. They are keen to find local staff who are passionate about a range of topics.

In a class of Y12 physics students, topics ranged from rising sea temperatures contributing to algal bloom in Hawke’s Bay, to how satellites can be used to detect people in flooded buildings through to checking the weather before going for a surf – each examples of what Rocket Lab’s work contributes to.

Year 10 Wairoa College pupil Kaedyn Lange, 14, has dreams of becoming the next “rocket man” and working in the space sector. “It’s a big dream. I’ve always wanted to do something similar.”

Planned as a night launch, with the window opening from June 13, Phelps encouraged people to keep an eye out for it, adding it would be spectacular to watch.