Rocket Lab’s CAPSTONE mission to the moon is key to establishing a lunar space station

“Going to the moon is no joke.” So said Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck, just days before the planned launch of CAPSTONE, a watershed mission for both NASA and the private space industry.
The mission is important, though you might not assume so based on the stats of the CAPSTONE CubeSat on its own: it’s about the size of a microwave oven and weighs in at just 55 pounds. But the end goal of the spacecraft’s roughly six-month stint in lunar orbit is to chart a favorable trajectory for a crewed station that will orbit the moon. Once established, that platform, dubbed Gateway, could unlock a whole new c

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