Seeking Alpha reports, “Rocket Lab USA announced late on Tuesday that it successfully launched a suborbital mission in November to test hypersonic technology for the Department of Defense. Hypersonic technology refers to vehicles and systems capable of traveling at speeds exceeding Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound12. These systems operate in a unique aerodynamic regime characterized by extreme temperatures, thin shock layers, and complex air flows.”
Full Story (Seeking Alpha)
Tag: Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab Successfully Conducts Two Launches Within 24 Hours
TechCrunch reports, “Rocket Lab set a new speed record for launch turnaround time, successfully executing two Electron missions in 24 hours. The company added in a statement that this is also the first time any launch operator has completed a mission from each hemisphere within that time frame. Rocket Lab, which was founded in New Zealand, maintains a launch pad there and at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia.”
Full Story (TechCrunch)
NASA Selects Rocket Lab for Mars Sample Return Study
Space News reports, “NASA has awarded a contract to Rocket Lab to study alternative concepts for Mars Sample Return (MSR), joining several other efforts to improve the cost and schedule of the program. Rocket Lab said Oct. 7 that it received a contract to study what it called ‘a simplified, end-to-end mission concept’ for MSR that would deliver samples being collected by the Perseverance rover to Earth for a ‘fraction’ of currently projected costs, estimated to be as high as $11 billion, and several years earlier than 2040.”
Full Story (Space News)
Rocket Lab Marks Milestone with 50th Electron Rocket Launch
Spaceflight Now reports, “Rocket Lab successfully reached a milestone that few commercial rockets achieved and at a pace that outperformed its competition. The company launched its 50th Electron rocket to date just seven years after the vehicle’s debut in May 2017 … Onboard the rocket were five satellites on behalf of France-based internet of things company, Kinéis … All five on this flight were successfully deployed.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)
Videos
RocketLab 50th Electron Launch
(The Launch Pad; YouTube)
NASA and Rocket Lab Launch Solar Sail
The New Zealand Herald reports, “NASA has launched its new solar sail mission from Mahia Peninsula. Once at a Sun-synchronous orbit, about 1000 km above Earth, the spacecraft will deploy its sails and use the pressure of sunlight for propulsion, instead of rocket fuel. If the microwave oven-sized CubeSat is successfully deployed, the operation would be a precursor to larger-scale missions to the Moon and Mars, NASA said.”
Full Story (New Zealand Herald)
Rocket Lab Launches NROL-123 Mission in 4th US Liftoff
SPACE reports, “Rocket Lab launched from the U.S. for the fourth time ever Thursday morning (March 21), sending mystery payloads aloft for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).” The NROL-123 mission, or “Live and Let Fly,” as Rocket Lab has designated it, launched at 3:25 a.m. EDT from the company’s Launch Complex 2 at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
Full Story (SPACE)
Videos
RocketLab Electron 46 | NROL-123
(The Launch Pad; YouTube)
Rocket Lab’s Electron Rocket Launches on Space Debris Removal Mission
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
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)
Video
Rocket Lab – Electron Launch, 18 February 2024
(Space Affairs; YouTube)
NASA Sends 4 CubeSats into LEO
ExecutiveBiz reports that NASA “has deployed a set of four small satellites to low Earth orbit aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle to test autonomous spacecraft swarm technologies in space.” The 6U-sized CubeSats “lifted off from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand and will demonstrate their ability to conduct maneuver planning, communications networking, relative navigation and autonomous positioning as a group with minimal supervision from ground mission controllers, NASA said Monday.” Funded by NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology, the six-month Starling mission “is expected to pave the way toward advancing autonomous robotic swarms for future space and lunar science and exploration missions.”
Full Story (ExecutiveBiz)
Rocket Lab Launches NASA Hurricane Hunter Satellites
SPACE reports that the first two satellites “in NASA’s new hurricane-hunting constellation have taken to the skies.” The two cubesats, the “founding members of the agency’s TROPICS network, launched today (May 7) atop a Rocket Lab Electron rocket, which lifted off from the company’s New Zealand site at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT and 1 p.m. on May 8 local New Zealand time).” The TROPICS constellation (short for “Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation Structure and Storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats”) “will consist of four cubesats in low Earth orbit.” Rocket Lab will “launch the other two satellites about two weeks from now, if all goes according to plan.”
Full Story (SPACE); Watch launch (Rocket Lab’s YouTube channel).
Rocket Lab Shifts NASA Cubesat Launches from Virginia to New Zealand
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.”
Full Story (Space News)