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Rocket Lab’s NASA Moon launch to kick off new era of ultra-cheap deep space exploration
Rocket Lab will soon take its tiny Electron rocket further than any similarly-sized vehicle before it, sending a NASA satellite to the Moon and potentially kicking off a new era of unprecedentedly cheap space exploration.
On February 14th, the world-leading small satellite launch company announced – alongside NASA – that the space agency had awarded it a $9.95 million launch contract worth $9.95 million to send the $13.7 million Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) CubeSat to lunar orbit. In other words, NASA has contracted a full-up scientific mission to the Moon for less than $25M total – almost unfathomably cheap compared to all interplanetary exploration performed in the last half-century.
In the same way we opened access to LEO for smallsats, we're excited to become the dedicated ride to the Moon & beyond for smallsats.— Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) February 14, 2020
The mission announcement comes just four months after Rocket Lab announced at the International Astronautical Congress in Washington D.C., that it would utilize its small two-stage rocket, Electron, and proprietary satellite bus platform, Photon, to support lunar orbit missions. It also occurs just two months after the official opening of Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 2 located in Wallops, Virginia – a dedicated facility to specifically service NASA and the US government launch contracts.
According to Ana Rivera, LSP program integration manager for CAPSTONE, the launch will be Rocket Lab’s “inaugural NASA launch from their new launch site at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia” and is expected to occur in the early part of 2021.
NASA’s CAPSTONE is a tiny spacecraft weighing around 55 lb (25 kg) – small enough for an equally tiny rocket to send it on an improbable journey. Rocket Lab’s two-stage Electron rocket will begin by launching CAPSTONE to LEO, where NASA says Photon – a Rocket Lab-built kick stage and satellite bus – will send CAPSTONE on its way to the Moon. CAPSTONE will then use its own propulsion system to enter a “Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit” (NRHO) around the Moon.
It is important to note that, under its own propulsion, CAPSTONE is expected to take nearly three months to reach its intended orbit around the moon. However, the CAPSTONE mission is an imperative one that could lead to better understandings about the journey to the moon and “can reduce navigation uncertainties ahead of our future missions using the same lunar orbit” according to Marshall Smith, director of human lunar exploration programs at NASA Headquarters.
Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck stated that Rocket Lab is “able to provide NASA with complete control over every aspect of launch and mission design for CAPSTONE, something typically only available to much larger spacecraft on larger launch vehicles. In the same way (Rocket Lab) opened access to low Earth orbit for small satellites, we’re proud to be bringing the Moon within reach to enable research and exploration.”
Photon – the all-in-one experience
Photon is a satellite bus platform designed with interplanetary delivery and deep space communication in mind. The small, but mighty, launch-to-orbit bus features downlink communication capability, radiation-tolerant avionics, and higher power generation. Photon is also able to precisely deploy multiple small payloads into various orbits enabling multiple mission launches supported by Rocket Lab’s proprietary Curie propulsion system.
In the era of NASA’s Artemis initiative to return astronauts to the moon, Beck explains that “small satellites will play a crucial role in science and exploration, as well as providing communications and navigation infrastructure to support returning humans to the Moon.” In this sense, small satellites will serve as pathfinders and build the necessary infrastructure prior to the arrival of more robust hardware such as NASA’s lunar spaceship Gateway and eventually human space travelers.
To date, Rocket Lab has successfully launched 11 missions and 48 satellites to low-Earth orbit. Eventually, Rocket Lab intends to use a recoverable and reusable Electron to loft Photon on interplanetary missions to lunar fly-by orbits, Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO), and low-Lunar Orbit by the end of 2020. The two most recent missions – Running Out Of Fingers and Birds of a Feather – featured an upgraded first-stage of Electron that survived re-entry in one piece. This will hopefully lead to a fully recoverable first-stage rivaling the current recovery efforts of SpaceX with its first stage of the Falcon 9 boosters.
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A new report from Reuters claims that a transport authority in Sweden is pushing back against the approval of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite because it will travel over speed limits.
The report says the Swedish Transport Administration (TRV) recommends the European Union votes against FSD’s approval. TRV believes it should not be approved until Tesla disables FSD’s ability to speed.
TRV sent a letter to the European Union’s Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles (TCMV), which is set to meet on June 30 to discuss the potential approval of the Tesla FSD suite in the country. Tesla, which has received various approvals in Europe over the past two months, has not provided a comment.
Teslas operating on FSD do travel over the speed limit, depending on the Speed Profile that is chosen. Drivers have the ability to disengage FSD at any point; Tesla specifically states that those supervising the suite are responsible for its actions.
Let’s cut to the chase: humans operating any vehicle speed almost daily in the United States. Realistically, speed limits in the U.S. are more frequently treated as speed minimums. However, other countries are different, and driving behaviors are less aggressive.
TRV believes that “allowing automated systems to systematically exceed legal speed limits…risks undermining both the legal framework and the expected safety benefits of vehicle automation,” the report stated. It’s surprising that Tesla has not received this claim from other countries previously.
This could be a good argument to bring Max Speed back, the setting that previously allowed the driver to choose the absolute fastest the car would travel.
This would still put the responsibility of supervision in the hands of the driver. It would allow the driver to choose whether the car would travel over the speed limit or not, acknowledging that they set the speed, and if they get pulled over, there would be no ability to argue it.
However, it does not seem as if this is something Tesla will do, especially considering many U.S. drivers have requested the feature in an effort to eliminate speeding or at least tone it down. The company has not shown any interest in bringing it back.
Tesla has approvals for FSD in Europe in Estonia, Lithuania, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
Tesla is going to let you guide Full Self-Driving with Grok in 3 months, CEO Elon Musk confirmed on X.
The response from Musk, which revealed Tesla plans to allow drivers to effectively control the car and its navigation more explicitly using Grok, puts the feature for about September.
A Tesla owner said that Full Self-Driving is great, but owners should be able to “converse with Grok like we can with an Uber driver.” She then used examples like, “Grok, turn right here,” and “Drop us off right here, we’ll walk due to traffic,” and finally,” Drop at entrance first, then park far away.”
Coincidentally, the final piece of dialogue would also mean features like Banish are potentially on the way soon.
This functionality will be there in about 3 months or so
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 18, 2026
Banish is also referred to as “Reverse Summon,” and would enable the car to self-park while dropping occupants off at their destination.
This would be a great way to improve the overall experience while supervising FSD. Navigation is already a major painpoint that many owners complain about. Manual overrides when a maneuver is requested or canceled (like using the turn signal stalk to override a navigation route), do not always work.
The feature could be especially useful in street parking scenarios in a city, where spots are sometimes tough to come by. Many of us who grab dinner in a more populated area will park a street or two over from wherever we’re going, because sometimes you know that’s the best you will get. If a driver using FSD could say, “Hey Grok, turn right here on Queen St. and park in that open spot on the right,” it could save a lot of confusion FSD might have on its own.
Musk teased that a similar feature was “coming” back in February:
Tesla Full Self-Driving set to get an awesome new feature, Elon Musk says
It is certainly surprising that Tesla is doing it at this point. The company’s more recent moves have been more evident of taking control and inputs away from humans and putting them in the AI’s hands more frequently. The biggest example of this was taking away Max Speed in AI4 cars, giving us Speed Profiles, and not having any input on the fastest speed the car will travel.
Of course, giving navigation preferences to Grok is availble already in Teslas, but not at the drop of a hat. Instead, you can suggest a certain route at the beginning of your drive.
Here’s an example of that from December:
🚨🏈 I am taking my parents and Fiancee to the @Ravens game next weekend and asked @Grok to help me route my @Tesla through a specific neighborhood to reach the correct Lot we will park in.
This is a great example of the new @grok nav integration with the Tesla Holiday Update: pic.twitter.com/rPp4I7q8Yv
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) December 13, 2025
Finally, the original post that Musk responded to mentioned a parking preference after dropping off the occupants, which describes the Banish feature that Tesla has teased for years.
We’re not sure if Musk was responding more to the ability to guide the car with Grok, or whether he also was including Banish in the three-month prediction timeframe.
A close-up image of a Cybercab engineering vehicle in Peabody, Massachusetts, reveals a compact triangular side repeater camera housing equipped with an integrated washer mechanism.
This seemingly small hardware addition could prove to be one of the most critical components for achieving reliable, unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) — not just for the dedicated Robotaxi but potentially for existing AI4-equipped vehicles as well.
The washer system’s importance cannot be overstated in Tesla’s vision-only autonomy approach. Cameras are the sole sensory input for the neural networks powering FSD, constantly interpreting the environment for safe navigation. In real-world conditions, however, lenses quickly accumulate rain, snow, mud, dust, or road spray.
Many of us Tesla owners, especially those who deal with any sort of winter weather at all, know the all-too-common alert that pops up when cameras are obstructed:
Even brief obstructions can drop perception confidence, trigger safety disengagements, or force the vehicle to pull over, although these are relatively rare. Instead, most of the time, the camera will need a wipe from the owner next time they stop the car.
But unlike human drivers who can manually clear their view, a Robotaxi operating 24/7 without a steering wheel or mirrors must maintain pristine vision autonomously. The Cybercab’s side repeater washer delivers targeted cleaning bursts precisely where needed for merging, lane changes, and blind-spot monitoring — functions that demand uninterrupted visibility from the external cameras:
And this is how the side camera and washer look like on a Cybercab. This is from an Engineering vehicle in Peabody MA. pic.twitter.com/Re8VknpmLM
— Tobias Goebel (Unsupervised) (@tpgoebel) June 17, 2026
This hardware directly tackles a known pain point in current FSD deployments. Owners frequently report camera-related alerts during inclement weather, which is understandable, but needs to be solved for a true autonomous experience.
For a production Robotaxi fleet aiming for high utilization and minimal downtime, robust washer systems represent a foundational reliability upgrade; essentially, they’re a must-have. Early sightings suggest the design may extend to rear cameras as well, creating a comprehensive cleaning architecture that keeps the entire vision suite operational in harsh environments.
Without it, even the most advanced neural nets struggle when their “eyes” are compromised.
What Does This Mean for AI4 Cars?
This Cybercab detail raises timely questions for AI4 cars already on the road. While Hardware 4 delivers superior compute and camera resolution compared to earlier versions, production models typically lack dedicated side and rear washers. Tesla has included them on Model Y robotaxis that it is using in the fleet:
Tesla Robotaxi has a highly-requested hardware feature not available on typical Model Ys
As Tesla refines unsupervised FSD for broader release, the gap in environmental resilience becomes evident. Software improvements can help mitigate issues, but they cannot fully replace physical cleaning in heavy rain or muddy conditions. Analysts and owners increasingly speculate that AI4 vehicles may eventually require similar washer retrofits — or a future AI4.5 variant — to match the Cybercab’s all-weather readiness and support the same level of autonomy.
As testing progresses, the Cybercab’s washer mechanism highlights Tesla’s pragmatic focus on real-world robustness. It may well become the hardware piece that determines how quickly and reliably FSD scales from prototypes to everyday vehicles.
Tesla faces Full Self-Driving pushback in EU over ‘speeding’
Tesla teases greater Grok FSD integration and ‘Banish’ feature ‘in about 3 months’
