Two Satellites Lost after Rocket Lab's Second-Stage Booster Fails to Reach Orbit (cnet.com) 25
Space startup Rocket Lab "lost a pair of satellites as the second stage of one of its Electron rockets failed to make it to orbit Saturday," reports CNET:
After a successful liftoff from the company's New Zealand launch facility, something went wrong after the first stage booster separated from the smaller second stage carrying two satellites for Earth imaging company BlackSky. A live feed from the second stage showed that after it separated, it appeared to go into an uncontrolled tumble.
Commentators on the company's livestream reported that telemetry from the second stage had been lost and later the Rocket Lab Twitter feed confirmed the mission failure.
"An issue was experienced during today's launch, resulting in the loss of the mission," the company tweeted. "We are deeply sorry to our launch customers BlackSky and Spaceflight. The issue occurred shortly after stage two ignition..."
Rocket Lab reported that the booster made a successful parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific and a specially modified ship was en route to try to recover it.
"Rocket Lab has mostly been successful so far, with 17 of its missions reaching orbit," writes Engadget. Or, as CNET puts it, "This is the third failure out of 20 Rocket Lab launches and the second loss of mission in the past year."
In a statement, Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said "We will learn from this, and we'll be back on the pad again."
Commentators on the company's livestream reported that telemetry from the second stage had been lost and later the Rocket Lab Twitter feed confirmed the mission failure.
"An issue was experienced during today's launch, resulting in the loss of the mission," the company tweeted. "We are deeply sorry to our launch customers BlackSky and Spaceflight. The issue occurred shortly after stage two ignition..."
Rocket Lab reported that the booster made a successful parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific and a specially modified ship was en route to try to recover it.
"Rocket Lab has mostly been successful so far, with 17 of its missions reaching orbit," writes Engadget. Or, as CNET puts it, "This is the third failure out of 20 Rocket Lab launches and the second loss of mission in the past year."
In a statement, Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said "We will learn from this, and we'll be back on the pad again."
grading on a curve? (Score:2)
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Back when *I* went to school, that'd be just barely a B (it'd be a B-, but we didn't do those back then.)
Agree, the insurance prices will be adjusted to suit, no rather it's ranked an A thru an F. That's real life grading, which occurs no matter what goes on in the classroom.
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Re: grading on a curve? (Score:2)
As I recall from my schooling (northeast US),
A: 93-100
B: 85-92
C: 77-84
D: 69-76
E: 60-68 (?)
F: 60 (?)
I'm not totally sure about the D, E and F ranges.
Re: grading on a curve? (Score:4, Informative)
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70% was failing where I went to school.
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I went to various schools throughout the U.S., and the scale was always the same after elementary school:
A: 90+ (higher than 100% was possible with extra credit)
B: 80-89
C: 70-79
D: 60-69
E: (wasn't used)
F: Anything less than 60 (negative scores were possible if penalty points were assessed)
Presumably not the same cause (Score:3)
Re:Presumably not the same cause (Score:4, Interesting)
" this looks likely to be a problem probably with the engine itself this time."
Where are you getting that from? What I've seen so far suggests a navigation system or gimbaling issue. The engine seemed to start up just fine, but then the telemetry seemed to suggest that the stage was tumbling (look at the speed indicator going wild at second stage ignition). Think Proton M failure, only hopefully without the extra stupid cause (hammering in a sensor backwards). If it is one of those issues the engine is probably automatically commanded to shutdown purposely to prevent the breakup of the stage or deviation from the flight corridor. Hopefully they'll peg down the issue quickly and resume flying without too much of a delay.
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One video is from the side of the second stage, looking backwards. It gave us the view down the rocket throughout the first stage burn. Then the stages separated, and we see the top of the first stage. Then the second stage engine ignites, and we see the top of the first stage illuminated brightly by the second stage ignition, and the exhaust impinging on the stage. Then we see the first stage appear to yeet off to the right, but as the first stage doesn't ha
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Not that I see any evidence of it in the limited video we do have, but you could have a point regarding the engine bell. If one side of it blew out (the side opposite the camera) it would cause a hard thrust to one side that no engine gimbal would be able to overcome. I've never heard of that kind of a failure on a vacuum engine bell though and I have some serious doubts that the rest of the bell (we can see at least one side intact on the video after engine shutdown) could survive the forces on it but it
Doing better than SpaceX (Score:4, Informative)
It took RocketLab 21 launches to reach the 3 failure mark. It only took SpaceX 3 launches of Falcon-1 to reach the 3 failure mark.
For Falcon 9, their third and last lost payload was Amos-6 which should have been launch 29 but exploded before launch. All 90 subsequent launches have successfully delivered their payload. (Failures to land have been numerous, but customers don't care about those).
So hopefully RocketLab is like SpaceX, a long string of successes after 3 failures.
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The first few customers were taking more of a calculated risk than the late customers, therefore the loss is worse and points to a failure in process. That said, I hope they recover .. we need cheaper access to space and especially companies like Rocket Lab that innovate.
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Re: Doing better than SpaceX (Score:2)
My guess is that you missed a word, and wrote the opposite of what you wanted to write.
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NZ is awesome! (Score:2)
It seems incredible that tiny NZ (population under 5 million) has managed to get a a space launch operation going. And mostly successfully. Fantastic work.
Whilst my home country across the Tasman, with a population of 25 million, is still muntering on about coal and supressing electric cars. Amazing.
Go NZ, go!
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What to the satellite companies do now? (Score:2)
What are the options for the satellite companies that lost their satellites in such a case? Is there some sort of insurance that they have to build a new one? Does the cost fall on Rocket Lab? Was it just a calculated risk that the company deals with?
I would assume they don't have to pay for the launch if it's unsuccessful.
I remember when the Mars Pathfinder was launched in 1996 on a Delta II rocket, the next Delta II launch ended in explosion 6 weeks later. Interesting to me to think about how NASA's Ma
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Commercial satellite companies usually have insurance on their satellites for cases such as this. I know there was a big fight back during the AMOS 6 failure (Falcon 9 exploded on the pad during test firing) between SpaceX, SpaceCom, the insurer and the manufacturer between who would cover the loss. As far as the launch cost I think it is usually a partial refund or a replacement launch, again that is what SpaceX did for the AMOS 6 failure. SpaceCom was offered $50m or a replacement launch, they chose a
Can't Help Myself (Score:2)
I know it's not nice (or accurate), but it just crossed my mind:
"Rocket Lab, burning out its fuse down there alone."
Slashdot's lameness filter sucks. It thinks song lyrics that try to reproduce the song melody are ASCII art.