NASA's tiny CAPSTONE moon probe is back in touch with its handlers, ending a short but spooky silent period.

The 55-pound (25 kilograms) CAPSTONE went dark on Monday (July 4), shortly after separating from its Rocket Lab Photon spacecraft bus and heading toward the moon. The mission team immediately set to troubleshooting, and their efforts have already been rewarded.

"We have re-established communications with CAPSTONE. The spacecraft is looking happy and healthy. More details to come," Colorado-based company Advanced Space, which operates the mission for NASA, said via Twitter today(opens in new tab) (July 6).

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https://www.space.com/nasa-capstone-moon-cubesat-contact-reestablished

After losing communications with CAPSTONE on July 4, the first trajectory correction maneuver, which was originally scheduled for the morning of July 5th, had to be been delayed. Now, after communications were restored on July 6, NASA’s CAPSTONE successfully completed its first trajectory correction maneuver, which started at 11:30 a.m. EDT (8:30 a.m. PDT) Thursday, July 7.

This was the first in a series of thruster burns over the next few months to more accurately target CAPSTONE’s transfer orbit to the Moon. The maneuver lasted just over 11 minutes and changed the spacecraft’s velocity by about 45 miles per hour (about 20 meters per second). CAPSTONE’s next trajectory correction maneuver is targeted for Saturday, July 9.

https://scitechdaily.com/nasas-capstone-aces-first-targeting-maneuver-on-journey-to-the-moon/

The spacecraft has eight small hydrazine-fueled thrusters for deep space maneuvers. CAPSTONE’s rocket firing Thursday was good enough for mission managers to cancel a follow-up maneuver that would have “cleaned up” any errors from the first course correction.

Advanced Space said Saturday that officials decided to delay the mission’s third planned burn to review additional data and evaluate the spacecraft’s performance during maneuvers. With the good performance of CAPSTONE’s first burn, it’s possible the third maneuver may not be required, the company said.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/07/10/capstone-probe-overcomes-communications-glitch-on-course-for-moon/

NASA’s CAPSTONE Spacecraft: Mission Team Determines Cause of Communications Issue

During the commissioning of NASA’s CAPSTONE spacecraft, the Deep Space Network team noted inconsistent ranging data. While investigating this issue, the spacecraft operations team attempted to retrieve diagnostic data on the spacecraft’s radio and sent an incorrectly formatted command that made the radio inoperable. The spacecraft fault detection system should have rebooted the radio immediately but did not because of a fault in the spacecraft flight software.

Eventually, CAPSTONE’s autonomous flight software system cleared the fault and brought the spacecraft back into communication with the ground, allowing the team to implement recovery procedures and begin commanding the spacecraft again.

While CAPSTONE was out of contact with Earth, the spacecraft autonomously maintained proper orientation to keep its antenna pointed towards Earth and allow the solar panels to keep the battery charged. CAPSTONE also used its thrusters to perform a standard maneuver to dump excess momentum from its reaction wheels, which are internal wheels that help the spacecraft rotate and point itself.

https://scitechdaily.com/nasas-capstone-spacecraft-mission-team-determines-cause-of-communications-issue/