A satellite the size of a microwave successfully exited Earth’s orbit on Monday and is headed to the moon. This is the most recent step in NASA;’s plan to land humans on the lunar surface again. The Capstone satellite was launched six days ago from New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula by the company Rocket Lab in one of their small Electron rockets.
The journey will take four months for the satellite to reach the moon, as it cruises through space using minimal energy. At US$32.7 million, the mission is relatively low cost and marks the beginning of a new era for space exploration.
Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck said “It’s probably going ot take a while to sink in. It’s been a project that has taken us two, two-and-a-half years and is just incredibly, incredibly difficult to execute, … so to see it all come together tonight and see that spacecraft on its way to the moon, it’s just absolutely epic.”
For more information about the source click HERE