The launch of NASA's
CAPSTONE moon mission has been pushed back another week, to no earlier than June 13.
The 55-pound (25 kilograms)
CAPSTONE spacecraft will lift off atop a Rocket Lab Electron booster equipped with a Lunar Photon upper stage
That liftoff had been
targeted for June 6. But CAPSTONE will now get off the ground no earlier than June 13,
CAPSTONE's main goal is
to test out the stability of a near rectilinear halo orbit round the moon, making sure it's a safe place for NASA's forthcoming Gateway space station
That highly elliptical
orbit will take CAPSTONE, and Gateway, as close as 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) to the lunar south pole
CAPSTONE will also
conduct some ests with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been circling Earth's nearest neighbor since 2009.