SPACE reports, “Rocket Lab plans to launch an Earth-observing radar satellite this morning (Dec. 20). An Electron rocket is scheduled to lift off from Rocket Lab’s New Zealand site today, during a 75-minute window that opens at 9:00 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT; 3:00 a.m. on Dec. 21 local New Zealand time).”
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Update from SPACE at 9:45 a.m. ET: “Today’s launch attempt was scrubbed with around 17 minutes left in the countdown. Rocket Lab has not yet set a new launch date.”
Spaceflight Now reports “a small satellite that will inspect a discarded rocket body in orbit lifted off Sunday/Monday on a mission to develop techniques for removing space debris.” Built by Japan-based Astroscale, the satellite “launched atop a Rocket Lab Electron” rocket from New Zealand at 9:52 a.m. EST
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Rocket Lab – Electron Launch, 18 February 2024
(Space Affairs; YouTube)
Space News reports that Rocket Lab has relocated a pair of Electron launches of NASA storm-monitoring cubesats from LC-2 in Wallops Island, Virginia, to LC-1 New Zealand. Rocket Lab’s launches will each carry two TROPICS cubsats. The first launch – dubbed “Rocket Like a Hurricane” by the company – is scheduled for no earlier than April 30. The second – dubbed “Coming to a Storm Near You” – is scheduled for May 15. Each launch will carry two TROPICS cubesats. The article adds that the company “did not disclose why the launches could not take place from LC-2 as originally planned other than that the shift to New Zealand would ensure they would launch in the second quarter. However, the change does avoid a potential conflict with a Northrop Grumman Antares launch of a Cygnus cargo mission to the International Space Station.”
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Space News reports that Astroscale “signed an agreement with the government of New Zealand Nov. 10 to study advanced concepts for orbital debris removal.” The agreement “broadly covers cooperation on space safety and sustainability, with an initial project examining approaches for a single servicing spacecraft to remove up to three debris objects on a single mission.”
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Spaceflight Now reported, “Rocket Lab launched an Electron rocket Friday from its privately-run spaceport in New Zealand, boosting a 260-pound satellite into orbit on a $64 million NOAA-funded mission to relay environmental data from remote weather stations and help track global wildlife movements.” The mission is the latest in a line of Argos environmental data relay satellite launches, and is a partnership between General Atomics, NOAA, and CNES (the French space agency). The mission sent the GAzelle satellite into a polar orbit about 466 miles above Earth, where it is planned to operate for five years.
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CNET News reports that NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) was launched from the Rocket Lab launch facility in New Zealand on Tuesday, “paving the way for Artemis astronauts to return to the moon in the coming years.” CAPSTONE “will be testing new navigation systems and trying out the halo-shaped orbit around the moon that will one day be occupied by NASA’s Lunar Gateway. The Gateway will be a sort of small space station circling the moon that will be used for staging for Artemis missions to the lunar surface.”
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Official NASA Broadcast of CAPTSTONE launch from New Zealand, June 28, 2022
(NASA via YouTube)