The U.S. space agency NASA launched a CAPSTONE CubeSat to the moon aboard a rocket from New Zealand on Tuesday.

The rocket was launched by American aerospace manufacturer and launch service provider Rocket Lab and is called Electron. The full name of the mission is Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE). 

NASA earlier said this would be the first spacecraft to fly a specific unique lunar orbit ahead of future missions with crew. It is a nanosatellite barely bigger than a microwave oven, part of a landmark mission to return humans to the moon.

A rocket carrying the tiny CAPSTONE module successfully launched from New Zealand's eastern Mahia Peninsula to a deafening blast and a wash of fiery propulsion.

"We have liftoff!" NASA said in a statement shortly after the 09:55 GMT launch, described by Bradley Smith, NASA's director of launch services, as "absolutely fantastic."

"This incredible team has just sent CAPSTONE on a ballistic trajectory to the lunar orbit," he said.

New orbit for future plan

All being well, in four months CAPSTONE will be in a position to begin innovative surfboard-shaped "near rectilinear halo orbits" around the moon.

The new orbit is a stretched-out egg shape with one end passing close to the moon and the other far from it. Imagine stretching a rubber band back from your thumb. Your thumb would represent the moon and the rubber band the flight path.

The orbit passes within 1,600 kilometers of the moon at its closest point, before catapulting to 70,000 kilometers away at the furthest.

"It will have equilibrium. Poise. Balance," NASA wrote on its website. "This pathfinding CubeSat will practically be able to kick back and rest in a gravitational sweet spot in space – where the pull of gravity from Earth and the moon interact to allow for a nearly-stable orbit.”

Weighing about as much as a suitcase, the satellite is trial-running an orbit for NASA's "Gateway" space station – which will travel around the moon and serve as a jumping off point for the astronauts to descend to the moon's surface as part of its Artemis program.

Scientists hope the orbit will be super-efficient, using the pull of both the moon and the Earth to minimize fuel use.

As part of the same project, the United States eventually plans to put the first woman and first person of color on the moon.

NASA also plans to build a moon base, and use the experience as a stepping stone to a crewed flight to Mars.

Mission in steps

For the satellite mission, NASA teamed up with two commercial companies. California-based Rocket Lab launched the rocket carrying the satellite, which in turn is owned and operated by Colorado-based Advanced Space.

The mission came together relatively quickly and cheaply for NASA, with the total mission cost put at $32.7 million.

Getting the 25-kilogram satellite into orbit will take more than four months and will be done in three stages.

First, Rocket Lab's small Electron rocket launched from New Zealand's Mahia Peninsula. Just nine minutes later, the second stage called Photon separated and went into orbit around Earth. Over the next five days, Photon's engines are scheduled to fire periodically to raise its orbit further and further from Earth.

Six days after the launch, Photon's engines will fire a final time, allowing it to escape Earth's orbit and head for the moon.

Photon will then release the satellite, which has its own small propulsion system but which won't use much energy as it cruises toward the moon over four months, with a few planned trajectory course corrections along the way.

(With input from agencies)