6 . A satellite the size of a microwave oven successfully broke free from its orbit around Earth on Monday and is headed toward the moon.
It’s been an unusual journey already for the CAPSTONE satellite. It was launched six days ago from New Zealand by the company Rocket Lab in one of their small rockets. With a small body, it will take another four months for the satellite to reach the moon, as it travels along using the smallest amount of energy. NASA put it the total amount of money spent on the mission at only $32.7 million. “For just some tens of millions of dollars, there is now a rocket and a spacecraft that can take you to the moon, to asteroids, to Venus, to Mars,” Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck said.
Beck said it was hard to put his excitement into words. “It’s probably going to take a while to sink in. Itˈs been a project that has taken us two-and-a-half years and is just difficult to perform,” he said. “So to see it all come together tonight and see that spacecraft on its way to the moon, it’s just absolutely impressive.”
If the rest of the mission is successful, the CAPSTONE satellite will send back vital information as the first to take a new orbit around the moon: a stretched-out egg shape with one end of the orbit passing close to the moon and the other far from it. Because of the shape, the satellite can travel a relatively short distance to enter the orbit, only 1000 miles away from the North Pole at its nearest pass to Earth every six and a half days. By taking advantage of the precise points between Earth and the Moon where the gravity from both is balanced out, the satellite can use less energy to maintain the orbit.
Eventually, NASA plans to build a small space station orbiting the moon that will provide extensive capabilities to support the Artemis program, a program which is a renaming of several earlier activities NASA was already undertaking to send humans to the moon. For the mission, NASA teamed up with two commercial companies.
1. Why is the satellite designed to be small?
| A．To reduce the cost. | B．To take man to other planets. |
| C．To break free from Earth’s orbit. | D．To fit Rocket Lab’s small rocket. |
2. Which of following is True according to the passage?
| A．The small satellite is designed for space travel. |
| B．The earth has received information sent from the satellite. |
| C．The South Pole is the nearest point from the earth to the orbit. |
| D．The form of the orbit helps shorten the travel distance of the satellite. |
3. What is the advantage of the new orbit?
| A．It’s round in shape. | B．It saves the satellite fuel. |
| C．It has balanced gravity. | D．Itˈs close to the moon at both ends. |
4. What might be the Artemis program’s goal?
| A．Renaming earlier activities. | B．Building a small space station. |
| C．Landing astronauts on the moon. | D．Working with commercial companies. |
