NASA is working with industry to advance the next phase of cislunar infrastructure for the agency’s Artemis and Lunar Base program, including orbital assets and demonstrations. Under a contract awarded to Advanced Space, the agency’s CAPSTONE 02 mission will demonstrate rendezvous and proximity operations, autonomous navigation, and cislunar communication capabilities while continuing to characterize the radiation environment on the Moon.

The CAPSTONE 02 mission, scheduled to launch in 2027, will use two small spacecraft in lunar orbit to facilitate these demonstrations and support future NASA lunar and deep space missions.

NASA’s original CAPSTONE demonstration, short for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, became the first U.S. commercial mission to the Moon and the first spacecraft to operate in a nearly rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon. It is an almost stable orbit, thanks to the interactive attraction of the gravity of both the Earth and the Moon.

The mission successfully validated communications, networking, and autonomous navigation capabilities while gaining operational experience in cislunar space. The second CAPSTONE mission expands on these achievements by moving from orbit validation to demonstrations that will inform future lunar exploration and infrastructure development.

Christopher Baker

Space Infrastructure Portfolio Leader within the Research and Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC.

NASA’s CAPSTONE 02 mission will demonstrate advanced relative navigation technologies for rendezvous and proximity operations in cislunar space. These techniques are more sophisticated than those used in low Earth orbit and are designed to assist NASA astronauts as they dock with lunar landers in cislunar orbit, enabling safe crew transfers to and from the lunar surface.

The demonstration will fly two identical approximately 400-kilogram (882-pound) spacecraft from Terran Orbital Systems, Inc. Mission operators will conduct a series of rendezvous and proximity operations and loitering (or formation flying) techniques in lunar orbit with each spacecraft to better understand spacecraft trajectories under the simultaneous influence of the Earth’s and Moon’s gravities, also known as three-body orbits.

The CAPSTONE 02 mission will use ground tracking measurements, optical sensors and celestial bodies to help one spacecraft locate and rendezvous with another. The mission will apply navigation strategies similar to those planned for Orion’s approach to a deep-space lunar lander, helping NASA build confidence in these techniques for future exploration.

Each CAPSTONE 02 spacecraft will have the ability to switch between “hunter” and “target” roles, testing a wide range of operational scenarios under a variety of environmental conditions in cislunar space. Transporting the crew to the lunar surface from cislunar orbit depends on knowing how well the navigation systems will function during these operations. Since these conditions cannot be completely recreated on Earth, they must be tested in space.

The CAPSTONE 02 mission will also serve as an operational test bed, allowing three navigation software packages developed by NASA to be tested. Each software application will collect data during CAPSTONE 02’s low-energy transfer trajectory, which will take it from Earth to beyond the Moon before settling into a lunar orbit. The spacecraft will carry an optical imaging payload from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to support the navigation demonstration and capture images of the Moon. Additionally, the mission will further refine the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System navigation software first demonstrated at CAPSTONE as a method of determining a spacecraft’s position relative to other spacecraft without relying on tracking from Earth.

CAPSTONE 02’s suite of technologies is designed to automate routine navigation tasks, reduce reliance on traditional space-to-ground data, and enable new mission concepts that can result from greater coordination between satellites. Additionally, the CAPSTONE 02 spacecraft is designed for rapid and cost-effective deployment, demonstrating a scalable and repeatable mission model.

“This mission represents an important step in the maturation of cislunar capabilities,” said Sean Fuller, director of CAPSTONE at the lunar base. “By expanding the lessons learned from CAPSTONE to demonstrate increasingly sophisticated operational concepts, CAPSTONE 02 lays the foundation for lunar infrastructure and commercial services that support Artemis, the lunar base, and future deep space missions.”

The CAPSTONE 02 mission is funded by NASA’s Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate with support from the Research and Technology Mission Directorate. The mission is managed by Small Spacecraft & Distributed Systems, based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, within the Research and Technology Mission Directorate. NASA used a Small Business Innovation Research Phase III contract to fund the mission.

For more information about NASA’s CAPSTONE mission, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission/capstone02/