ArgoMoon

ArgoMoon [Argotec]

ArgoMoon is a small lunar mission designed by the Italian company Argotec, which is building the ArgoMoon CubeSat under the Italian Space Agency (ASI) internal review and approval process.

ArgoMoon will demonstrate the ability to perform operations in close proximity of the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS), which will send Orion onto its lunar trajectory. It should also record images of the ICPS for historical documentation and to provide valuable mission data on the deployment of other Cubesats. Additionally, this CubeSat should test optical communication capabilities between the CubeSat and Earth. After that, orbital maneuvers will move the satellite in a geocentric highly elliptic orbit, whose apogee is so high to allow flybys and imaging of the Moon and surrounding environment.

ArgoMoon is one of 10 cubesats carried with the Artemis 1 (Orion CM-002) mission into a heliocentric orbit in cis-lunar space on the maiden flight of the SLS (Block 1) iCPS launch vehicle in November 2022.