25 Kg satellite in lunar orbit

[India Four Two]

I have just found out about this fascinating mission:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022...fully-arrived/

The spacecraft launched at the end of June on an Electron rocket from New Zealand. Electron is the smallest rocket to launch a payload to the Moon, ...

... the vehicle burned its thruster for 16 minutes at about 0.44 Newtons, which is equivalent to the weight of about nine pieces of standard printer paper.

That's 1.6 ounces of thrust in old money!

This sentence sent me down a technical rabbit-hole:

We received confirmation that CAPSTONE arrived in near-rectilinear halo orbit

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/sp...craft/capstone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-r...ear_halo_orbit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_sphere

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Gateway

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/L...aft/index.html




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