spacetoday.net: Rocket Lab wins contract for lunar cubesat launch

Rocket Lab wins contract for lunar cubesat launch

Posted: Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 8:14 AM ET (1314 GMT)
Rocket Lab Electron launch of DARPA R3D2 (Rocket Lab)

Rocket Lab has won a NASA contract for the launch of a cubesat mission to the moon. A Rocket Lab Electron rocket will launch NASA's Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) satellite from Virginia in early 2021. The contract is valued at $9.95 million. On that launch, Rocket Lab's Photon satellite bus will serve as a kick stage, placing CAPSTONE on a trajectory to the moon. CAPSTONE will then use its own propulsion to maneuver into a near-rectilinear halo orbit, the same orbit that the lunar Gateway will use.