CAPSTONE Team Celebrates 2022 Mission of the Year Award for Cislunar Orbital Pathfinder
AIAA Small Spacecraft Technical Committee honors Capstone at 36th SmallSat Conference in Utah; Partners on the <US$30M mission include Advanced Space / PI Bradley Cheetham, providing overall project management, Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System (set to interface with LRO) and Ballistic Lunar Transfer / Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit trajectories; Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems (founded by Jordi Puig-Suari of Cal Poly, co-inventor of the CubeSat standard) and parent company Terran Orbital, who designed, built and operate 25kg, 12U Capstone; Stellar Exploration, manufacturer of hydrazine propulsion system; Launch provider Rocket Lab
Artemis 1 launching to Moon orbit NET 29 Aug with 10 rideshare cubesats, NASA test dummy Commander Moonikin Campos, DLR / ISA torso radiation ‘phantoms’ Helga & Zohar, mascots Snoopy & Shaun the Sheep; Race to landings led by ispace, aiming for Nov launch, Astrobotic working to launch NET Dec, seeking to acquire Masten assets with US$4.5M bid; Intuitive Machines striving for Jan 2023 followed by ISRO Chandrayaan-3 NET Q1, JAXA SLIM NET March and Roscosmos Luna-25 NET September; Xplore of Redmond WA and Turkish Space Agency have also declared for uncrewed lunar orbit in 2023, SpaceX plans crewed dearMoon
Long-awaited USA flagship spacecraft Artemis 1, comprised of $US23B+ Boeing / Northrop Grumman developed Space Launch System (SLS) and $20B+ / 4-crew Lockheed Martin Orion capsule slated to roll out to LC-39B at KSC 18 Aug ahead of 29 Aug launch to Moon; 42-day mission includes 4-day outbound phase, 6-day retrograde orbit; 5-m diameter, 186-piece AVCOAT heatshield must withstand 2,760°C while travelling 11 km/s upon reentry, a record for human-rated craft; “Any one of our 42 active astronauts is eligible” for Artemis 2/3 human Moon Missions, per Astronaut Office Chief Reid Wiseman
Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter is headed to 100-km polar orbit around Moon, powered by four 30-N Orbit Maneuver Thrusters on ~ 19-week journey; 6 science instruments include Gamma Ray Spectrometer to monitor y-ray emissions during trip / from lunar orbit within 10 keV to 10 MeV range; NASA ShadowCam based on LRO LROC with 800x sensitivity to map PSRs; Ministry of Science official Kwon Hyun-joon tells 
Summer around Moon well underway with KARI KPLO Danuri joining NASA Capstone (operated by Advanced Space) on fuel efficient ballistic lunar transfer trajectory; Danuri expected to reach Moon orbit by 16 Dec, Capstone to arrive 13 Nov; NASA Artemis 1 (SLS megarocket + Orion crew capsule) to take direct 4-day trans-lunar injection route, rollout to KSC pad 39B anticipated 19 Aug, nominal launch date set for 29 Aug; ispace Hakuto-R targets launch to Lacus Somniorum ‘Lake of Dreams’ in Nov; Astrobotic Peregrine working towards Q4 launch to Lacus Mortis ‘Lake of Death’
International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA) to speak on the resumption of astrophysical investigation from the surface of Moon during Division A (Fundamental Astronomy) talk at 14:40 KST, just hours after Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter Danuri set to launch at 8:08 KST; IM-1 carrying ILO-X to Moon NET Jan 2023 along with co-payload Radio Wave Observations at the Lunar Surface of the photoElectron Sheath (ROLSES); Future AFTM includes ILO-1 (NET 2024), LuSEE (2025), DAPPER, FARSIDE, Lunar Crater Radio Telescope
Draper Laboratory to carry 3 NASA instruments to Schrödinger basin (75.0°S, 132.4°E) on lunar far side NET 2025 under 8th CLPS task order / US$73M contract; 2 Blue Canyon cislunar relay satellites to be deployed prior to landing and operated by Advanced Space; Draper team includes ispace, General Atomics, Systima Technologies; First USA mission to target lunar far side would mark 2nd nation to explore hemisphere after China; Anchor payloads include Lunar Surface ElectroMagnetics Experiment (LuSEE), Lunar Interior Temperature and Materials Suite (LITMS), Farside Seismic Suite (FSS)
NASA Capstone performing nominally on voyage to Moon with trajectory correction maneuver 3 expected to be performed by 
