25 Kg satellite in lunar orbit

[India Four Two]

I have just found out about this fascinating mission:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/11/the-first-cubesat-to-fly-and-operate-at-the-moon-has-successfully-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/spacetech/small_spacecraft/capstone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-rectilinear_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/LRO/spacecraft/index.html

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/879x485/photo_2_capstone_hickenlooper_879x485_3197c1d21b9f60af8fc092 a3ebdaef4e9aeda396.jpeg


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[India Four Two]

PS I've just followed up with this NASA link:

https://sservi.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/ger-downloads/day1/Whitley-LunarSurface-GER3-Workshop-20171130.pdf

Some fascinating information embedded in what is one of the worst PowerPoint presentations I have ever seen!

The author has clearly not read any of Edward Tufte's books:


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1172x676/screenshot_2022_11_17_at_12_23_02_f150ae0521c425b8f82199cd5f 5a0f68cf956e1a.png

He's had a go at NASA before - "PowerPoint Does Rocket Science--and Better Techniques for Technical Reports"
https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001yB&topic_id=1

[HOVIS]

Scott Manley is the man. He's also just started to learn to fly, which he covers in other videos.
https://youtu.be/EIodnH5aFI8

[India Four Two]

Hovis,

Excellent. Thank you very much. I've seen some of Scott's excellent videos before. I agree - he is the man!

What fascinates me is who thought up these orbital solutions?

[HOVIS]

Hovis,

Excellent. Thank you very much. I've seen some of Scott's excellent videos before. I agree - he is the man!

What fascinates me is who thought up these orbital solutions?
There's some very clever buggers about. 😁
Have you seen his video on Lagrange points? Fascinating stuff.

[India Four Two]

Yes, I thought I was clever but clearly I’m not a rocket scientist!

[ORAC]

There are some really great orbital mechanic gurus out there.

Remembervthe guys who bought up a a geosynch satellite had failed to reach orbit and had been written off by the insurance company?

The saved it by slingshotting it twice around the moon before slotting it into its original planned orbit….

Space Today Online - Tidbits and Lost Facts about Satellites (http://www.spacetoday.org/Satellites/SatBytes/MoonCommsat.html)