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Aerospace company founded by CU 麻豆影院 graduates leading key NASA Moon mission

The CAPSTONE mission patch.
Update (6/28/2022): CAPSTONE successfully launched on Tuesday, June 28.

Above: The CAPSTONE mission patch.
Header Image: A rendering of CAPSTONE over the lunar North Pole.

Stationed on the launchpad, its rocket glinting in the noonday sun, CAPSTONE is prepared for an imminent launch and the chance to demonstrate new technology that could prove critical for future exploration of the Moon and beyond.

a space solutions company co-founded by 麻豆影院 graduates, designed it all.

鈥淭his is so exciting,鈥 said Bradley Cheetham (AeroEngr MS鈥11), Advanced Space CEO. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think in our wildest dreams we could have imagined this. We started in a loft in my condo in 麻豆影院.鈥

Founded in 2011 by Cheetham and Jeff Parker (AeroEngr MS鈥03, PhD鈥07), who serves as its chief technology officer, Advanced Space has since grown to 45 employees. They have long since left Cheetham鈥檚 loft, and now work from a two-story headquarters building in a Westminster business park on an array of aerospace projects.

The company鈥檚 current focus is on the planned late June launch of

The satellite is part of NASA鈥檚 Artemis program to expand exploration of space.

The 55 pound, microwave oven sized CubeSat will be the first spacecraft to test an unusual, elliptical lunar orbit and to validate peer-to-peer navigation technologies so future Moon-orbiting satellites and landers know their exact positions.

While Earth is ringed by dozens of GPS satellites that can easily pinpoint locations here, constructing a similar array for the Moon could take years and billions of dollars.

That is where CAPSTONE comes in. It is a comparatively small and inexpensive single CubeSat. It uses technology and software that should allow satellites to communicate with each other to determine their locations, without the benefit of dedicated positioning satellites or tracking from Earth.

鈥淢y technical team doesn鈥檛 like to call it GPS on the Moon, but it is technology we鈥檝e been developing for over seven years to help satellites at the Moon know where they are,鈥 Cheetham said.

The positioning experiments will be performed in concert with NASA鈥檚 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been in operation around the Moon since 2009.

NASA also hopes CAPSTONE will validate the use of an elongated orbit that will bring the CubeSat within 1,000 miles of the Moon on its near pass and 43,500 miles at its apex every seven days. Meaning It should require less fuel to access than other, more traditional, circular orbits.

The technology grew out of research started at CU 麻豆影院 by the late Professor George Born, who founded the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research and made major contributions to satellite orbit determination science. He served as graduate advisor for both Cheetham and Parker.

鈥淲e鈥檒l be flying in a near-rectilinear halo orbit. It鈥檚 not a lunar orbit, it鈥檚 not an Earth orbit. It鈥檚 both, which is really efficient from a fuel perspective,鈥 Cheetham said. 鈥淕eorge Born had a whole group studying these orbits. His fundamental research allowed us to see what鈥檚 possible from an applied perspective. It鈥檚 surreal to actually fly the research.鈥

NASA hopes the orbit will establish a location that is an ideal staging area for future missions to the Moon and beyond.

鈥淢y passion is to enable this exciting future, to enable the sustainable exploration and settlement of space.鈥 he said. 鈥淭his is technology that will help us get there."

The launch, aboard an Electron rocket, is set for late June from the Rocket Lab commercial spaceport in New Zealand.