Rocket Lab Successfully Carries a US Military Satellite Into Orbit (spaceflightnow.com) 20
"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.
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.
Very impressive (Score:5, Interesting)
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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)
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).
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SpaceX had three failures on their first three launches.
SpaceX had a partial failure on launch 4 and a total failure on launch 19.
Not sure what you mean. SpaceX's fourth launch was Ratsat, a non-functional mass-simulator satellite, 28 Sept 2008. It was their first successful launch to orbit.
A visualization here: https://www.spacexstats.xyz/#l... [spacexstats.xyz]
and a complete list of launches here: https://spacex-info.com/launch... [spacex-info.com]
Musk discusses the early years, and the early failures, here: https://www.space.com/25355-el... [space.com]
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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.
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At least... (Score:2)
It wasn't a disco ball this time, anyway.
Location why? (Score:3)
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)
Re: Location why? (Score:1)
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"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.
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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.