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As NASA prepares for a sustained human presence on the Moon, missions will increasingly require spacecraft that can navigate and communicate without a direct connection to Earth.<\/p>\n
NASA\u2019s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE, validated and advanced these capabilities.<\/p>\n
Designed to test and validate technologies in lunar orbit, CAPSTONE launched in June 2022 and became the first U.S. commercial mission at the Moon. The spacecraft tested operations in three-body orbits around the Moon, using the combined gravity of Earth and the Moon to reduce the fuel needed to maintain a stable lunar path. It became the first spacecraft to fly and characterize this orbit for future exploration and science missions. Owned and operated by Advanced Space, the microwave-sized spacecraft then received a 15-month mission extension, becoming a testbed for advanced communications, networking, autonomous navigation, and software-defined satellite technologies.<\/p>\n
Rather than launch a new satellite, NASA\u2019s Research and Technology Mission Directorate demonstrated that CAPSTONE\u2019s existing hardware could host new applications after launch, transforming the spacecraft into a cost-effective, flexible lunar technology demonstration platform. NASA\u2019s SCaN\u00a0(Space Communications and Navigation) Division will now use the data to demonstrate innovative networking and navigation techniques on future experiments.<\/p>\n
\u201cOperating multiple experiments simultaneously aboard the same spacecraft allows NASA to evaluate how these technologies perform together in a real lunar environment,\u201d said Greg Stover, director of the Advanced Research and Technology Division within NASA\u2019s Research and Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. \u201cInvestments in autonomous operations and resilient communications infrastructure are essential to ensuring U.S. leadership as activity around the Moon continues to increase.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two experiments aboard CAPSTONE used software-defined infrastructure to advance two future mission essentials: autonomous navigation and deep space communications. The autonomous Navigation, Guidance, and Control software, or autoNGC, is designed to allow a spacecraft to determine where it is, where it is going, and how to get where it needs to be without waiting for instructions from the ground. While portions of the software had previously flown in Earth orbit, CAPSTONE marked the first time autoNGC was tested at the Moon.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo really demonstrate that something works, you have to fly it,\u201d said Sun Hur-Diaz, principal investigator for the autoNGC technology development project at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. \u201cThe real environment is key.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sun Hur-Diaz<\/p>\n
Principal Investigator for the autoNGC Project, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Researchers also evaluated how autoNGC performed with limited contact to Earth. While NASA\u2019s Deep Space Network antennas were supporting the Artemis II crewed test flight around the Moon, CAPSTONE\u2019s communications window dropped to just a few passes per week.<\/p>\n
Those gaps became one of the experiment\u2019s most valuable tests. Without data from Earth, autoNGC determined CAPSTONE\u2019s location using an onboard star tracker camera to image the Moon, Earth, and other celestial bodies. The camera-based system, known as optical navigation, at times outperformed ground-based methods for real-time onboard navigation, advancing technologies for future deep-space missions.<\/p>\n
Alongside autonomous navigation testing, CAPSTONE also tested delay\/disruption tolerant networking (DTN), a communications architecture designed for deep space. Unlike Earth-based internet systems, deep space communications must function despite long delays and frequent signal gaps. The DTN system addresses those challenges by storing information on the spacecraft when no connection is available and automatically forwarding it once communications are restored. With these demonstrations, CAPSTONE became the first to fly the latest DTN protocols beyond Earth orbit and the first to run them in NASA\u2019s core Flight System, an open-source framework that can be implemented on any spacecraft.<\/p>\n
In one demonstration, engineers began transmitting data from CAPSTONE to Earth, but the connection ended before the transfer was complete. The spacecraft stored the remaining data until the next communications opportunity, and transmission resumed automatically. Every piece of data made it home.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can imagine an astronaut walking behind a lunar hill or descending into a crater and temporarily losing connectivity,\u201d said Ben Anderson, a systems engineer for the Near Space Network at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. \u201cThis technology allows that data to be automatically retransmitted once communications are restored.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to its primary achievements, CAPSTONE\u2019s second life as a software-defined testing platform demonstrated that new technologies can be affordably tested and proven directly in their operational environment.<\/p>\n
After nearly four years of technology maturation, NASA\u2019s activities on CAPSTONE concluded in June 2026, while Advanced Space will continue to use the spacecraft as a technology development testbed.<\/p>\n
The CAPSTONE spacecraft was designed and built by Terran Orbital and is owned and operated by Advanced Space. NASA\u2019s Research and Technology Mission Directorate managed the mission through the Small Spacecraft and Distributed Systems program, based at NASA\u2019s Ames Research Center in California\u2019s Silicon Valley. Elements of the CAPSTONE technology suite were supported by NASA\u2019s Small Business Innovation Research program. The autoNGC and DTN demonstrations conducted during CAPSTONE\u2019s extended mission were managed by NASA\u2019s SCaN Division, based at NASA Headquarters in Washington.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n