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Spaceflight Insider
Theresa Cross
An illustration of NASA’s CAPSTONE mission orbiting near the Moon. Credit: NASA
Later this year, NASA plans to launch a CubeSat to test a special orbit around the Moon to verify its characteristics in advance of sending the Lunar Gateway there as early as 2024.
The 12-unit CubeSat is called “Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment,” or CAPSTONE, and it is spacecraft designed to test the calculated orbital stability of a “near-rectilinear halo orbit” for the Lunar Gateway outpost, which is expected to be part of NASA’s Artemis program.
NASA has contracted Rocket Lab to launch CAPSTONE aboard an Electron rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia, in 2021. The rocket will send the 55-pound (25-kilogram) CubeSat into an initial Earth orbit.
China, Russia agree to build lunar space station together, snubbing NASA s plans for joint exploration Mar 10, 2021, 01:18 PM
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An illustration shows the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) orbiting the moon.
This space station will be open to all countries, said China s national space administration.
This comes after Russia dodged NASA s invitation last year to join the Artemis Accords - a plan that was meant to unify how mankind explores space.
China is now one step closer to achieving its goals of bringing its people to the moon.
The country s national space administration announced this week that it had signed an agreement with Russia to build a lunar space station together. This station, they say, will be open to all countries.
China, Russia agree to build lunar space station together, snubbing NASA s plans for joint exploration businessinsider.co.za - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from businessinsider.co.za Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.