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Space

Rocket Lab Successfully Carries a US Military Satellite Into Orbit (spaceflightnow.com) 20

Posted by EditorDavid from the give-me-some-space dept.
"Resuming launches after a mission failure two months ago, Rocket Lab successfully placed a small U.S. military research and development satellite into orbit Thursday following a fiery liftoff from New Zealand..." reports Spaceflight Now: Heading east from Mahia, the rocket's first stage burned its nine engines for about two-and-a-half minutes, followed by a six-minute firing of the second stage engine to reach a preliminary parking orbit. A kick stage deployed from the the Electron rocket's second stage...

Rocket Lab, a California-based company founded in New Zealand, confirmed a good deployment of the U.S. military's small experimental Monolith spacecraft about 52 minutes after liftoff. "Payload deployed, flawless launch and mission by the team!" tweeted Peter Beck, Rocket Lab's founder and CEO.

The mission was the 21st flight of a Rocket Lab Electron launch vehicle since 2017, and the eighth to carry a payload for a U.S. military or intelligence agency customer. It was also the first Rocket Lab mission since May 15, when an Electron rocket failed before reaching orbit with two commercial BlackSky Earth-imaging satellites... The May 15 mission was the third time an Electron rocket failed to reach orbit on 20 attempts since 2017.
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Rocket Lab Successfully Carries a US Military Satellite Into Orbit

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  • Very impressive (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Saturday July 31, 2021 @12:48PM (#61641897) Homepage
    Rocketlab has in general been very impressive. They've now launched about 20 times with 3 failures. That's not a great failure, rate but they are learning rapidly. And right now, they are essentially a very cheap option for small satellite launches. It is really easy to get a satellite launch on a ride share, but it is tough to then launch when you want and to what orbit you want. Rocketlab is a great option if you have a satellite and want it in a specific orbit at a specific time. And from a tech standpoint, they are doing really neat stuff. Rather than use turbopumps, their rockets use electrically driven pumps, which is a potential long-term gamechanger. They are also working on rocket reuse and seem to be making substantial progress.

    • SpaceX also had their failures when getting started. Rocket Lab's Electron has at least as good of a track record as Falcon 1. Rocket Lab seems to be off to a promising start. It will be interesting to see what they come up with when they start scaling up to larger rockets. They've certainly put more things in orbit than Blue Origin.

    • Re:Very impressive (Score:4, Informative)

      by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Saturday July 31, 2021 @02:31PM (#61642159) Homepage

      Rocketlab has in general been very impressive. They've now launched about 20 times with 3 failures. That's not a great failure, rate but

      SpaceX had three failures on their first three launches.

      Learning from failure is a great way to learn... as long as you can survive the failures (and as long as you do learn from them).

    • Rather than use turbopumps, their rockets use electrically driven pumps, which is a potential long-term gamechanger.

      This is actually pretty doubtful. The only reason the electric fuel pumps make any sense is that the rockets are small, really small. So really, unless you are looking to scale down rockets even further then there is really no place for electric fuel pumps in rockets.

      • Right now they only make sense for small rockets. They didn't make any sense at all until very recently though. If the technology can be improved, it might end up making sense for larger rockets. (Although given that it sounds like Rocketlab isn't going to use electric pumps for their next generation larger Neutron rocket, it looks like that time isn't soon.) But batteries are improving rapidly.

  • It wasn't a disco ball this time, anyway.

  • Location why? (Score:3)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Saturday July 31, 2021 @02:22PM (#61642131) Homepage

    Can someone explain to me why a New Zealand founded company is California based? Is New Zealand prejudiced against Rockets? Do people go around protesting about space?

    • Re:Location why? (Score:5, Informative)

      by idji ( 984038 ) on Saturday July 31, 2021 @03:49PM (#61642339)
      to win US military contracts.
    • There are probably more rocket scientists in California than in most of the rest of the world. Also, the closer you are to the equator, the cheaper your launch becomes....in that way California is pretty neat. Most other places close to the equator does not contain major cities and industrial Center's...
      • They launched from NZ, not California.

      • "There are probably more rocket scientists in California than in most of the rest of the world."
        That has nothing to do with it.

        Also, the rockets are launched in NZ as well, as stated in the story summary, right at the beginning of it in the first sentence.

      • California is on the west coast, the worst possible coast, all launches always go east over sea.

    • No, the reverse is true, America (well, NASA) is prejudiced against giving any company contracts unless they're 51%+ owned/built by an American company.
      So Rocket Lab pandered to NASA and set up California operations to 3D print the rocket engine and then ship it to NZ where the rest of the rocket is created and manufactured then launched.
      The rest of your comment makes you sound like a conspiracy theory weirdo.

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