Gizmodo reports Rocket Lab is working to challenge SpaceX, which currently has a stranglehold on the spaceflight industry. Rocket Lab CFO Adam Spice said, “We are positioning Neutron to compete directly with the Falcon 9,” CNBC reported. The projected cost “of flying with Neutron, a fully reusable medium-lift rocket that could perform its first launch next year, is slated at $50 million.” In comparison, SpaceX’s price per flight is typically $67 million. Rocket Lab has differentiated itself by developing 3D-printing technology and now performs “multi-continent launches of its Electron rocket.” Now, with its Neutron Rocket, Rocket Lab “is eyeing the medium-lift sector; the future rocket, in addition to delivering various payloads, is being positioned as a vehicle for transporting astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station.”
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Tag: Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab Launches First US Mission
Reuters reports that Rocket Lab “launched its first mission from American soil on Tuesday, kicking off an expansion of the company’s launch business that adds to a surge in private rocket activity at U.S. space ports.” The Long Beach, California-based company’s workhorse “Electron rocket, an expendable launcher standing 40 feet (12 meters) tall, lifted off at 6 p.m. EST from its new launch pad at the NASA-operated Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia.” The mission “marked Rocket Lab’s first outside its flagship launchsite on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand, where the company has carried out all 32 previous Electron missions since the rocket’s debut in 2017.”
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Video
Rocket Lab Launches First Electron mission from Virginia, Tuesday, January 24, at 6 p.m. EST from Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia.
(NASASpaceflight; YouTube)
Rocket Lab Launches NOAA-Funded Wildlife Tracking Satellite
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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Rocket Lab Launches NROL-162 Payload into Orbit
SPACE reports that Rocket Lab has delivered “another spacecraft to orbit for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which operates the nation’s fleet of spy satellites.” The Rocket Lab Electron booster “topped with the NROL-162 spacecraft lifted off from the company’s New Zealand site on Wednesday (July 13) at 2:30 a.m. EDT (0630 GMT; 6:30 p.m. local time in New Zealand).” About an hour later, “the Electron’s ‘kick stage’ deployed NROL-162 into Earth orbit as planned, Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck confirmed via Twitter.” Rocket Lab wrote Wednesday that NROL-162 “will strengthen the NRO’s ability to provide a wide range of timely intelligence information to national decision makers and intelligence analysts to protect the United States’ vital interests and support humanitarian efforts worldwide.” NROL-162 is a “joint effort of the NRO and the Australian Department of Defence.”
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Rocket Lab’s NROL-162 Launch, July 13, 2022
(The Launch Pad via YouTube)
CAPSTONE Launched Tuesday Morning
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)
Rocket Lab Recovers First Stage Booster After BlackSky Launch
Spaceflight Now reports that Rocket Lab “launched two small BlackSky optical Earth-imaging satellites Wednesday from New Zealand, the first of three straight Electron rocket flights for the U.S. remote sensing company.” For the third time, Rocket Lab was able to retrieve “the launch vehicle’s first stage booster.”
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Rocket Lab Preparing for First Launch from US
ExecutiveGov reported that Rocket Lab completed a “wet dress rehearsal” at its Launch Complex 2(LC-2) in Wallops Island, Virginia. The company’s representatives said in a statement Thursday, “With this major milestone complete, the Electron launch vehicle, launch team and the LC-2 pad systems are now ready for Rocket Lab’s first launch from US soil.” Rocket Lab’s autonomous flight termination system still needs to be certified by NASA, and a date cannot be set until then.
Full Story (ExecutiveGov)