Terran Orbital, a leading manufacturer of satellite solutions, announced the successful completion of the Critical Design Review (CDR) for NASA’s CAPSTONE 02 mission, marking a major milestone as the program advances toward spacecraft integration and testing.
Led by Advanced Space as prime contractor, CAPSTONE 02 will build upon the success of NASA’s original CAPSTONE mission to demonstrate increasingly sophisticated capabilities in cislunar space. Terran Orbital is providing the spacecraft for the mission, continuing the company’s role in enabling innovative missions at the Moon and beyond.
The successful CDR confirms that the CAPSTONE 02 mission design is mature and ready to proceed into the next phase of development, integration, and testing. Terran Orbital participated in the review alongside NASA, Advanced Space, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Space Dynamics Laboratory, and other mission partners.
Targeted for launch in 2027, CAPSTONE 02 will operate two identical small spacecraft, each approximately 400 kilograms, in lunar orbit. The spacecraft will alternate between “chaser” and “target” roles to demonstrate a range of rendezvous and proximity operations under the unique environmental and gravitational conditions of cislunar space.
“CAPSTONE 02 represents an exciting evolution of what we demonstrated with the original CAPSTONE mission,” said Peter Krauss, President and CEO of Terran Orbital. “Successfully completing Critical Design Review brings us another step closer to returning Terran Orbital spacecraft to the Moon. We’re proud to work alongside NASA, Advanced Space, and the entire mission team to demonstrate technologies that can help enable increasingly complex and sustained operations throughout cislunar space.”
Building on CAPSTONE’s Lunar Legacy
CAPSTONE 02 builds on the pioneering achievements of the original CAPSTONE mission. CAPSTONE became the first U.S. commercial mission to the Moon and the first spacecraft to operate in a near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO), helping validate an orbit important to NASA’s future lunar exploration plans.
CAPSTONE 02 takes that heritage a step further.
The two spacecraft will demonstrate advanced relative navigation techniques for rendezvous and proximity operations in cislunar space, capabilities that are significantly more complex than those typically performed in low Earth orbit. These technologies could ultimately support future scenarios involving spacecraft docking, lunar logistics, servicing, and the transfer of astronauts between spacecraft and lunar landers.
To accomplish these demonstrations, CAPSTONE 02 will combine ground-based tracking measurements, optical sensors, and celestial observations, allowing one spacecraft to locate and rendezvous with the other. The mission will also provide an operational testbed for three NASA-developed navigation software suites during its low-energy transfer trajectory from Earth, beyond the Moon, and ultimately into lunar orbit.
The spacecraft will also carry an optical imaging payload developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to support navigation demonstrations and capture imagery of the Moon.
Advancing the Future of Cislunar Operations
CAPSTONE 02 is designed to help mature technologies and operational concepts needed for future lunar exploration and scalable infrastructure throughout the Earth-Moon system.
The mission is funded by NASA’s Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate with support from the agency’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate and is managed by Small Spacecraft & Distributed Systems at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.
For Terran Orbital, CAPSTONE 02 continues a legacy of designing and manufacturing spacecraft capable of operating well beyond traditional Earth orbit. From the original CAPSTONE mission to CAPSTONE 02 and other emerging cislunar programs, Terran Orbital is helping provide the spacecraft technologies needed to enable a more capable and sustainable presence around the Moon.
