The spacecraft rebooted and communication was restored.
The US Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced the latest news about the 25-kilogram Capstone satellite the size of a microwave oven. Engineers battled for almost two weeks with a lunar probe refusing to respond to commands.
Capstone hasn’t received a message from Earth for 11 days. NASA said:
The spacecraft remained generally serviceable and kept on course throughout the failure, sending telemetry data back to Earth.
However, on Monday, February 6, 2023, the spacecraft rebooted and regained its ability to “hear” commands from Earth.
Recall that the launch of the Capstone spacecraft took place on June 28 from the cosmodrome on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand using the Electron launch vehicle of the American company Rocket Lab. Capstone should help calculate the orbit for the future lunar station Gateway.
