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[b]Rocket Lab Completes Fifth Orbit Raise For NASA's CAPSTONE Mission to The Moon[/b] Rocket Lab USA, Inc. today (June 30) confirmed its Photon Lunar spacecraft successfully ignited its HyperCurie engine for a fifth time, further carrying NASA's CAPSTONE satellite toward the Moon. This fifth burn of the HyperCurie engine has propelled CAPSTONE and Photon deeper into space, successfully raising the spacecraft's elliptical orbit. With this latest completed orbit-raising maneuver, Rocket Lab's delivery of CAPSTONE to the Moon on Photon has now passed the half-way point of the mission's second phase with Photon. At the end of this mission phase, Photon will accelerate to more than 24,500 mph to break free of Earth's orbit and deploy CAPSTONE on a ballistic lunar transfer trajectory to the Moon. CAPSTONE will then be controlled by Advanced Space (which owns and operates CAPSTONE on behalf of NASA) to enter an elongated orbit at the Moon called a near rectilinear halo orbit. The final HyperCurie engine ignition on Photon to help set CAPSTONE on its course to the Moon is expected in the coming days.
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