Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, October 8 (Xinhua)-- the Capstone probe launched by NASA to the moon has now returned to normal.

The microwave-sized Capstone detector has been working in safe mode for a month since the engine burned down on Sept. 8, and finally stopped rolling at the command of the ground control center.

The Capstone Cube Satellite had an accident during a previous deep space mission when the valve got stuck and kept spinning out of control.

The orders executed on Friday (October 7) "overcome the main obstacles to the return of the spacecraft to normal operation," NASA wrote in a blog post.

According to reports, one of the eight thrusters of the 55-pound (25 kg) spacecraft had valve-related problems, one of which was in a "partially open" state, resulting in rotation. Before the cube satellite reaches the moon (expected on November 13), the NASA team is trying to find a way to restore its state.

"Capstone has now pointed its solar panels toward the sun and adjusted the antenna to achieve a better data connection with Earth," NASA said.

However, the successful recovery was a big bet, with NASA pointing out that the risks of the process itself were "huge" and that more adjustments might be needed to prevent partially open thruster valves from interfering with Capstone's position in space again.

NASA stressed that the spacecraft was "still in orbit" to capture and characterize the near-linear halo orbit (NRHO) of the moon to test its stability before the Gateway arrives a few years later.

▲ CAPSTONE will return to the moon in November after engineers have solved the rotation problem in deep space, NASA said. It is worth mentioning that the satellite is part of the Lunar Autonomous Positioning system Technical Operation and Navigation experiment (Capstone) to test the new orbit of the NASA Artemis lunar landing mission. NASA said it was trying to resume contact.

CTOnews.com reported that the Capstone Cube Satellite successfully left Earth's orbit and flew to the moon on July 5. It is also an important part of the NASA astronaut mission to the moon.

The Capstone Cube Satellite, the size of a microwave oven, was launched in July from New Zealand's Mahija Peninsula on an electronic rocket from the Rocket Lab.

According to reports, NASA plans to send a space station called Moon Gate into the orbit as a transit station for the Artemis lunar landing program, so that astronauts can reach the moon and land on the lunar surface from the space station.

The mission is carried out by NASA in partnership with the California-based Rocket Lab and Colorado-based Advanced Space (Advanced Space), which owns and operates Capstone Cube satellites.

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