РН Electron от новозеландской Rocket Lab

[tnt22]

Stephen Clark‏ @StephenClark1 14 мин. назад

Rocket Lab confirms its US launch site will be based at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, company's first launch from there set for third quarter 2019.

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Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 28 мин. назад

At the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia for an announcement the morning of a new company launching from the spaceport.


26 мин. назад

And it's official: Rocket Lab is establishing its US launch site, LC-2, at Wallops.


24 мин. назад

Rocket Lab's Peter Beck: we'll be investing more than $20M into the launch site, with first launch planned fro 3rd quarter of next year.


22 мин. назад

Shaun D'Mello, Rocket Lab: this facility will be based on LC-1 in New Zealand, able to support 12 launches a year.


19 мин. назад

Shannon Valentine, Virginia Sec. of Transportation: governor signed a $5M grant last night that will be going towards this partnership.


16 мин. назад

Dale Nash, Virginia Space: significant competition for this from other spaceports, but we worked through all the requirements.


9 мин. назад

Why Wallops? Beck: they supported an aggressive time scale, and had the team and infrastructure. It's also a "quiet" range [i.e., not a lot of other launches] to support our desired flight rate.


7 мин. назад

Nash and Valentine say exact value of incentives they provided to Rocket Lab is proprietary, but includes not just financial ones but other resources, like an available workforce for building launch facility and operating it.

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Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 18 мин. назад

Beck: amount of launch traffic at Cape Canaveral was one reason not to launch from there; that could change with greater use of autonomous flight termination systems there.


10 мин. назад

Beck: LC-1 pad in New Zealand will be the high-frequency pad for us; LC-2 will be a "boutique" pad for customers with specific requirements. Can serve orbits from 38–60˚ inclination from Wallops.

[tnt22]

Chris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 52 мин. назад

Support at least 12 launches a year. First launch 3rd quarter of next year.




49 мин. назад

They will start work on construction immediately. It'll support 30 jobs. It'll closely mirror their current launch site with the integration and control buildings. (LC-1 photo for reference).




32 мин. назад

LC-2 Pad location will be within the fenceline of Pad A - south and east.

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Rocket Lab‏Подлинная учетная запись @RocketLab 7 мин. назад

We have officially broken ground at Launch Complex 2! Construction crews rolling in soon. First launch in Q3 2019.

[tnt22]

https://spacenews.com/breaking-rocket-lab-chooses-wallops-as-its-u-s-launch-site/

Rocket Lab selects Wallops for U.S. launch site
by Jeff Foust — October 17, 2018


Rocket Lab and Virginia Space officials, along with other guests, held a formal groundbreaking ceremony Oct. 17 for the company's new launch site, LC-2, at Wallops Island, Virginia. Credit: SpaceNews/Jeff Foust

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. — Small launch vehicle company Rocket Lab announced Oct. 17 that it will build its second launch pad, and first in the United States, at Wallops Island in Virginia.

The company, headquartered in the United States but with much of its operations in New Zealand, said it will build Launch Complex (LC) 2 at the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport, located at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility here. Construction of the pad is set to start almost immediately, with the company planning a first launch fr om the site in the third quarter of 2019.

Rocket Lab sel ected Wallops after what Rocket Lab Chief Executive Peter Beck called an "exhaustive nationwide search" for a launch site to complement its existing facility in New Zealand, known as LC-1. The company announced four finalists in July that included Wallops as well as Cape Canaveral in Florida, Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska.
 
Wallops was the "clear winner" for several reasons, Beck said at a press conference here. "We've got a very aggressive time scale to build the pad, and Wallops had a lot of the team and infrastructure in place ready for us," he said.

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Wallops is also "relatively quiet" in terms of launch activity, he said, posing less of a challenge to meeting the goal of supporting as many as 12 launches a year of its Electron rocket. That factor helped rule out Cape Canaveral and its higher rate of launch activity. "The Cape is very, very busy," he said. "That was one of the key critical factors for choosing Wallops."

LC-2 will be built just south and east of Pad 0-A at Wallops, used by Northrop Grumman's Antares rocket, which performs about two launches a year on average carrying Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station. Both Rocket Lab and Wallops officials anticipate few conflicts between Antares and Electron missions, given that the Electron won't spend much time on the pad before launch and Northrop is also working to reduce the amount of on-pad time for future Antares missions.


Peter Beck, CEO of Rocket Lab, said he envisions LC-2 as a "boutique" launch site for customers seeking to launch to specific orbits, or prefer to launch from the U.S. Credit: SpaceNews/Jeff Foust

Rocket Lab plans to spend more than $20 million on LC-2, which will be based on New Zealand's LC-1 with only minor changes. "There are some small modifications that we intend to make, but you won't see something that looks vastly different," Beck said.

"Philosophically, we won't be changing much between the two pads," said Shaun D'Mello, Rocket Lab's vice president of launch. The company will incorporate some lessons learned, he said, from their existing site in terms of operations and maintenance. "Largely we'll operate the same."

Beck said that LC-2 will be used primarily for customers, like U.S. government agencies, who prefer to launch from within the United States. "LC-1 will remain our high-frequency pad," he said. "For LC-2, think of it more as a boutique pad for customers who want to remain in the United States and if they have a certain requirement around inclination." LC-2 can support launches to inclinations between 38 and 60 degrees.

The Virginia state government will also be supporting the construction of LC-2. Dale Nash, executive director of Virginia Space, the agency that runs the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport, said the exact amount was proprietary, but the figure includes a $5 million grant from the state government that Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam formally approved Oct. 16.

"There are economic incentives to get the pad built out" as well as a launch vehicle integration facility, Nash said. He also cited "in-kind contributions" in the form of the local workforce, which has experience building launch facilities. "It's not all money, but money is a key part of it."

Some of the specific details on how the facility will built are still being worked out, he said. "I won't say we have figured it all out, but we have a very good idea of wh ere we're headed," he said. "We know we can go do it."

The new launch site will initially support 30 jobs, Rocket Lab said, growing to as many as 100 once the site's launch rate ramps up towards its peak of one a month. That is welcomed by local and state officials, who have worked for years increase launch activity, and the economic benefits that come with it, at Wallops through efforts like building Pad 0-A for Antares. "This is a real shot in the arm for the Eastern Shore," said Bill Wrobel, director of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility.

"This new business highlights Wallops' reputation as a leader in the space industry and will lead to its continued growth and success," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) in a statement. He, like retired Sen. Barbara Mikulski, has backed the launch site, many of whose workers live in neighboring Maryland. "I will keep working to support this facility and ensure strong federal investment in its missions."

The announcement of LC-2 comes less than a week after Rocket Lab formally opened a new production facility in Auckland, New Zealand. That facility, opened Oct. 12 at an event that included New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and actor William Shatner fr om Star Trek. The new factory, which consolidates several smaller facilities, will be able to produce one Electron rocket a week, the company said.

Rocket Lab is also gearing up to resume launches after an extended hiatus caused by issues with a motor controller in the rocket's first stage engines. Beck said the next Electron launch remains on schedule for November, to be followed by another in December carrying a number of smallsats as part of NASA's Venture Class Launch Services program.

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[кукушка]

Эксклюзивная экскурсия в самое сердце нового мега-крутого завода Rocket Lab!

[tnt22]

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/10/22/rocket-lab-breaks-ground-on-new-virginia-launch-pad/

Rocket Lab breaks ground on new Virginia launch pad
October 22, 2018 | Stephen Clark


Officials fr om Rocket Lab, NASA, and the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority broke ground on a new launch pad at Wallops Island, Virginia, on Oct. 17. Credit: NASA/Wallops

Rocket Lab broke ground on a new launch pad on Virginia's Eastern Shore last week after selecting the Wallops Island location for the company's first U.S.-based launch site over competing spaceports in Florida, California and Alaska.

The company's Electron rocket could begin launching small satellites into orbit fr om Wallops Island in the third quarter of next year, said Peter Beck, Rocket Lab's founder and chief executive. He told Spaceflight Now in an interview that placing Rocket Lab's new launch pad, named Launch Complex-2, near an existing pad at Wallops will allow the company to begin operations there sooner than possible at other locations around the United States.

"Part of the key criteria was being able to push stuff out of the ground very, very quickly, and also have a high flight rate," Beck told Spaceflight Now. "So those were the two prime drivers, and that's where Wallops was able to provide a very nice solution by leveraging some existing infrastructure already (there)."

Rocket Lab's new launch pad will be located inside the perimeter fence of pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, which operates two launch pads on property owned by NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, according to Dale Nash, CEO and executive director of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, also known as Virginia Space, a state agency charged with attracting space business to Virginia.

Construction crews will built a launch pedestal, ramp and mobile gantry at Launch Complex-2 just southeast of pad 0A, wh ere Northrop Grumman's Antares rockets lift off on resupply missions to the International Space Station.

Nash said the Rocket Lab launch mount will be located near a vinyl-lined extension to pad 0A's water deluge basin, wh ere thousands of gallons of water are dumped during engine test-firings and Antares launches.

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File photo of an Antares rocket at pad 0A, with the vinyl-lined extension to the pad's water deluge basin visible in the foreground. The Rocket Lab launch pad will be built near the deluge basin. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

Pad 0A is one of two existing orbital-class launch pads on Wallops Island. A quarter-mile (400 meters) to the south lies pad 0B, a launch site used by solid-fueled satellite launchers such as the Minotaur family of rockets.

In an interview last week, Beck said Wallops and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, which is managed by Virginia Space, "had a really strong proven track record, and team, of being able to build and rebuild, in some cases, infrastructure in a very expedient way."

Pad 0A was significantly damaged by an Antares rocket explosion seconds after a launch in October 2014, requiring major repairs before launch operations resumed in 2016.

Sean D'Mello, vice president of launch at Rocket Lab, said Electron rockets based from Wallops could place satellites into low Earth orbit with inclinations ranging between 38 and 60 degrees. After an initial launch in the third quarter of next year, Rocket Lab aims to fly once per month from the new U.S. launch site.

"The range is nice and quiet, so we're able to get those mid-inclinations, and quite easily achieve a once-a-month launch cadence, which is what we want to see out of this site," Beck said.

Rocket Lab says the Wallops location will offer U.S. military and other government payloads an opportunity to launch from U.S. soil, instead of having to ship their satellites to the company's current launch base, named Launch Complex-1, in New Zealand.

"We can achieve those mid-inclinations out of LC-1," Beck said. "LC-2, though, gives us the ability to service our government customers, and customers who don't necessarily want to launch out of New Zealand. It gives us the ability to serve those particular missions."

For those familiar with the appearance of Rocket Lab's launch site on Mahia Peninsula on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island, the Wallops pad will look much the same, officials said.

"The whole reason why LC-1 was named LC-1 was it was always our intention to replicate that pad all around the world, so you'll see more pads from us in the future," Beck said. It'll look substantially the same. We'll roll in some improvements, some lessons learned as we've launched from it, but basically it's the same pad."


Rocket Lab's Electron rocket fires off its launch pad on Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand on its first successful orbital flight in January. Credit: Kieran Fanning/Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab's Electron rocket stands 55 feet (17 meters) tall and comes in two stages, with an optional kick stage to place satellites into certain orbits. Burning kerosene and liquid oxygen, its nine Rutherford first stage engines and single Rutherford second stage engine, developed in-house, are powered by battery-powered electric pumps.

The Electron booster can carry up to 330 pounds (150 kilograms) to a polar orbit around 310 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth. The rocket's capacity to a lower-altitude orbit is up to 500 pounds (225 kilograms), according to Rocket Lab.

The rocket company, founded in New Zealand and headquartered in Southern California, says it can launch an Electron rocket for less than $5 million per flight.

Rocket Lab is one of many entrepreneurial startups focused on launching small satellites into orbit, but it's the first in the current wave of rocket companies to successfully put a satellite into orbit. The second Electron launch in January put four small spacecraft in orbit, following a test flight in May 2017 that fell short of orbit.

Beck said the launch pad in New Zealand will remain the company's primary launch site.

"The pad down in New Zealand is curently locked to launch every 72 hours. That will remain a very high-frequency launch (pad)," Beck said. "LC-2, think of it more as a boutique pad for customers that want to remain in the United States, and if they have certain requirement around inclinations."

One way officials intend to shorten the time needed to build Rocket Lab's new launch pad at Wallops will be to use existing propellant supplies at pad 0A. The Antares rocket uses the same kerosene/liquid oxygen propellant mix as the Electron booster.

"We have facilities in place we can leverage off of," Nash said in an Oct. 17 press conference. "We know how to work with the commodities that are the same as the Electron, the liquid oxygen and the RP-1 refined kerosene, so it's within our experience base.

"We have a very experienced workforce that has built a launch pad, repaired a launch pad, we know we can go do it."

Rocket Lab sel ected Wallops Island after considering other locations for its first U.S. launch site, including Cape Canaveral, Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and Kodiak Island, Alaska.

Beck said Cape Canaveral is "just very, very busy" and is "pretty much a single-user spaceport" when launching without an automated flight termination system, a destruct package used to end a rocket flight gone awry.

While Cape Canaveral and Wallops Island are good launch sites for satellites heading into low-to-mid inclination orbits, Vandenberg and Kodiak offer launch azimuths to the south for missions destined for polar, sun-synchronous orbits.

"I think the mid-inclination (orbits) are very useful for a number of missions," Beck said. "Obviously, sun-synchronous is great for Earth observation, but mid-inclination is really good for communications and a number of science missions. We saw the need for a mid-inclination launch site first, but we'll move into the high-inclination stuff as well."

He said Rocket Lab will continue discussions with other U.S. launch sites for a future polar orbit launch base. Rocket Lab may also develop a launch base in partnership with Lockheed Martin in Scotland.

In addition to the launch pad, Rocket Lab plans to build a rocket assembly building, control center and payload processing facility in the Wallops Research Park adjacent to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. Beck said Rocket Lab plans to invest around $20 million to develop facilities at Wallops, and the company expects to generate around 30 jobs as launch operations get underway there.

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed a $5 million grant to go toward Rocket Lab's development at Wallops, according to Virginia Transportation Secretary Shannon Valentine. But officials did not elaborate on further economic incentives to lure Rocket Lab to the state.

Nash said the exact amount of economic incentives offered to Rocket Lab is part of a "proprietary agreement."

Meanwhile, preparations for the third Electron launch in New Zealand are advancing toward a planned liftoff in November, Beck said.

The mission was grounded in June to resolve a motor controller issue on the rocket, but engineers believe they have fixed that problem.

The second stage and kick stage for the third Electron mission, christened "It's Business Time," are currently at the Mahia Peninsula launch facility, and the first stage is expected to arrive before the end of the month.

"With the motor controller, we haven't rushed to get back to the pad," Beck said. "What we've, in fact, done is taken our time to really set the business up to succeed in a high volume kind of way."

Rocket Lab opened a new rocket factory in Auckland earlier this month for the assembly of composite structures, and a manufacturing plant in Huntington Beach, California, produces engines and avionics.

"Between the New Zealand factory and the U.S. factory, we're able to produce one launch vehicle every week," Beck said. "We're kind of not looking to the next launch. We're looking to the next 100 launches."

But Rocket Lab's next launch is sure to gain plenty of attention as the company transitions into an operational mode. Assuming the upcoming launch goes well, another Electron flight is scheduled fr om New Zealand in December carrying a load of NASA-sponsored CubeSats into orbit.

"We've got 16 flights scheduled next year," Beck said. "Our goal by the end of next year is to be launching once very two weeks, and as we move into 2020, launching once a week. We're tracking a pretty big pipeline of customers, and we've been very fortunate that people have put their trust in us. For us, it's making sure we do everything we can to deliver these customers' payloads to orbit."

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[Старый]

Это чего? Лавры хруников не дают им покоя? Поэтому они тоже после каждого запуска строят новый завод и новый космодром?

[Apollo13]

Старый пишет:
Это чего? Лавры хруников не дают им покоя? Поэтому они тоже после каждого запуска строят новый завод и новый космодром?    

До них просто дошло то, о чем Пророк говорил 15 лет назад.


https://spacenews.com/rewind-a-2003-interview-with-elon-the-six-million-dollar-man-musk/

Q. Before deciding to build Falcon, did you consider financing an existing venture like Kistler?
A. I looked at Kistler. Their strategy requires an enormous amount of money. I don't think I have the resources to push them over the top, frankly. And I don't agree with launching from Australia. The biggest advantage any U.S. launch company has is access to the U.S. government as a customer. Not taking advantage of that is a really big mistake.

[Старый]

Apollo13 пишет: 
До них просто дошло то, о чем Пророк говорил 15 лет назад.

The biggest advantage any U.S. launch company has is access to the U.S. government as a customer. Not taking advantage of that is a really big mistake.

Неужели Пентагон позарится на это?  :oops:

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Peter Beck‏ @Peter_J_Beck 5 нояб.

Yet another stage test done! This one left the factory yesterday, hot fired today and is now off to the launch site. The team is averaging a stage test every 7 days right now. The rockets are literately flying out the door!

[Alex_II]

третий улетел...

[tnt22]

http://www.rocketlabusa.com/news/updates/rocket-lab-reaches-orbit-again-deploys-more-satellites/

Rocket Lab reaches orbit again, deploys more satellites

Rocket Lab reaches orbit again, deploys more satellites

Auckland, New Zealand. November 11, 2018: Rocket Lab has continued the success of its 2018 orbital launch program with the launch of seven payloads to orbit today. The mission, named 'It's Business Time,' marks Rocket Lab's second successful orbital launch and deployment of customer satellites.

Rocket Lab's Electron launch vehicle lifted-off from Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand's Māhia Peninsula at 16:50 on 11 November NZDT (03:50 UTC). After first reaching orbit on Electron's second stage, the Curie kick stage successfully separated and circularized its orbit before deploying six satellites for customers Spire Global, Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Fleet Space Technologies and the Irvine CubeSat Stem Program. Curie also carried NABEO, a drag sail technology demonstrator, designed and built by High Performance Space Structure Systems GmbH, to passively de-orbit inactive small satellites and reduce space junk.

Rocket Lab founder and chief executive Peter Beck says the mission marks a new era in access to space.

"The world is waking up to the new normal. With the Electron launch vehicle, rapid and reliable access to space is now a reality for small satellites," says Beck.

"We're thrilled to be leading the small satellite launch industry by reaching orbit a second time and deploying more payloads. The team carried out a flawless flight with incredibly precise orbital insertion. " he says.

Rocket Lab is poised for high-frequency launches in 2019 thanks to production facilities that enable rapid mass Electron production, as well as a private launch complex licensed to launch up to 120 times per year.

"With two orbital launches down for 2018, we're not resting on our laurels. We have a burgeoning customer manifest, so we're moving onto the next mission within a few weeks – the incredibly exciting ELaNa 19 mission for NASA in December."

The full webcast for It's Business Time can be viewed at 

For real-time updates on Rocket Lab activities and upcoming launches, follow Rocket Lab on Twitter @RocketLab

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/11/11/rocket-lab-delivers-seven-payloads-to-orbit-plans-next-launch-in-december/

Rocket Lab delivers seven payloads to orbit, plans next launch in December
November 11, 2018 | Stephen Clark


Rocket Lab's Electron rocket lifts off Sunday from Launch Complex 1 on Mahia Peninsula, located on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island. Credit: Kieran Fanning & Sam Toms

Rocket Lab's Electron booster launched six small satellites and a drag sail demonstrator to orbit Sunday from New Zealand, a success on the company's first commercial mission that officials said should pave the way for a launch carrying NASA CubeSats next month and up to 16 flights of the light-class rocket next year.

The two-stage rocket, standing more than 55 feet (17 meters) tall, fired its nine kerosene-fueled Rutherford main engines at 0350 GMT Sunday (10:50 p.m. EST Saturday) and climbed away from Launch Complex 1, Rocket Lab's privately-operated spaceport on Mahia Peninsula, located on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island.

The Electron arced toward the south from Mahia Peninsula, riding nearly 50,000 pounds of thrust from the Rutherford engines during a two-and-a-half minute first stage burn.

The booster shut down and dropped away from the Electron's second stage, heading for a plunge into the Pacific Ocean, as a single Rutherford engine fired to propel the upper part of the rocket and its seven payloads into a preliminary orbit.

The Rutherford engine, developed in-house by Rocket Lab, fired more than six minutes to propel the rocket to the necessary speed to enter orbit. The engine uses pumps powered by batteries, an innovation for a liquid-fueled rocket engine, and all its primary components are 3D-printed, reducing the cost and time required during manufacturing.

Rocket Lab's Curie kick stage deployed from the Electron second stage around nine minutes after liftoff, in an elliptical parking orbit with a low point around 120 miles (200 kilometers) and a high point around 310 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth, and an inclination of 85 degrees.

The Curie kick stage soared over Antarctica, then flew north over the Atlantic Ocean before igniting its main engine, which burns a "green" non-toxic liquid monopropellant. A burn lasting nearly two minutes aimed to circularize the kick stage's orbit at an altitude of around 310 miles before release of the mission's six satellite passengers.

Rocket Lab confirmed in its live webcast of the flight that all six satellites separated as planned.

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First deployed from the Curie kick stage was the IRVINE01 CubeSat built by students in Southern California, followed by two ship-tracking and weather data collection craft for Spire Global, two pathfinder data relay satellites from Fleet Space Technologies, and the CICERO 10 commercial weather satellite built by Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems for GeoOptics.

Peter Beck, Rocket Lab's founder and CEO, said the Electron rocket's orbital accuracy was "exquisite" on Sunday's mission, setting the stage for another Electron launch in December carrying around a dozen scientific and research CubeSats sponsored by NASA and developed at U.S. institutions and universities.

The launch window for the next Electron flight is currently expected to open around Dec. 10 and extend to Dec. 18, according to two sources with payloads flying on the NASA-funded mission.

Sunday's launch was the third flight of Rocket Lab's Electron rocket, following a pair of test flights in May 2017 and in January the company named "It's a Test" and "Still Testing." Last year's inaugural Electron mission fell short of orbit, but the Electron launch in January delivered several small spacecraft to orbit, including a geodesic sphere dubbed "Humanity Star" covered in reflective panels designed to make it visible from Earth.


The Electron rocket lifts off Sunday from New Zealand. Credit: Rocket Lab

The Electron rocket is capable of placing up to 330 pounds (150 kilograms) of payload in a polar orbit around 310 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth. The rocket's capacity to a lower-altitude orbit is up to 500 pounds (225 kilograms).

Founded in New Zealand and headquartered in the United States, Rocket Lab says it can launch an Electron rocket for $5.7 million per flight, offering small satellite owners a more affordable, dedicated ride to orbit than larger, more expensive rockets, which often launch large clusters of smallsats at a time.

The success of the January launch gave Rocket Lab officials confidence to press ahead with the company's first operational flight, which was named "It's Business Time."

Rocket Lab planned to launch the "It's Business Time" mission in April, but engineers discovered a problem with a motor controller during a fueling test. The controller woes continued during a launch attempt in June, and Rocket Lab stood down from the launch campaign to resolve the issue.

The Electron rocket finally launched Sunday on the first attempt after the months-long delay.

"The world is waking up to the new normal. With the Electron launch vehicle, rapid and reliable access to space is now a reality for small satellites," Beck said in a statement after Sunday's launch. "We're thrilled to be leading the small satellite launch industry by reaching orbit a second time and deploying more payloads. The team carried out a flawless flight with incredibly precise orbital insertion."

Two the satellites launched on the Electron rocket Sunday are owned by Spire Global, a San Francisco-based company which builds and operates a fleet of CubeSats collecting weather data and tracking maritime traffic. The Lemur-2 satellites are about the size of a shoebox, and also carry instrumentation to track aircraft in flight.


A Spire Lemur-2 CubeSat during testing. Credit: Spire

Another California-based company, GeoOptics, also launched a small satellite for its own commercial weather monitoring constellation, which monitors GPS navigation signals passed through the atmosphere to measure temperature and moisture profiles. The GeoOptics CICERO 10 spacecraft was the biggest of the bunch launched Sunday, weighing in at around 22 pounds (10 kilograms).

A CubeSat named IRVINE01 built by Southern California high school students is also set for liftoff on the Electron rocket.

Fleet Space Technologies, an Australian company with plans to build a network of tiny tracking and data relay satellites designed to connect with devices in remote locations on Earth, also launched its first two test CubeSats on Sunday's mission — named Proxima 1 and 2.

A German-built payload from High Performance Space Structure Systems also rode into orbit Sunday to test an aerodynamic drag sail that could be used to de-orbit future satellites and help clear space junk out of orbit. The drag sail was to remain attached to the Curie kick stage and unfurl after the separation of the other satellites.


A model of the drag sail to be demonstrated on the NABEO tech demo payload. Credit: Rocket Lab

In an interview with Spaceflight Now last month, Beck said Rocket Lab has laid the groundwork for a more fast-paced launch manifest, despite the delays in launching the Electron rocket this year.

"With the motor controller, we haven't rushed to get back to the pad," Beck told Spaceflight Now. "What we've, in fact, done is taken our time to really set the business up to succeed in a high volume kind of way."

Rocket Lab opened a new high-volume factory in Auckland last month. Coupled with a factory in Huntington Beach, California, Rocket Lab can produce up to one new launch vehicle every week, Beck said. The company also broke ground on its first U.S. launch pad at Wallops Island, Virginia, in October.

There are up to 16 Electron launches planned in 2019, Beck said, between the New Zealand launch site and the new pad in Virginia, which is scheduled to begin supporting missions in the third quarter of 2019.

"Our goal by the end of next year is to be launching once every two weeks, and as we move into 2020, launching once a week," Beck said. "We're tracking a pretty big pipeline of customers, and we've been very fortunate that people have put their trust in us."

Beck said Rocket Lab is generating "significant revenues" from customers, and the company's backlog is growing. But the company has its sights set on more launch sites, including a potential location in Scotland and possibly a second U.S. launch base. That could require more financing.

"It's a capital-intensive business, especially when you're building launch sites all around the world," Beck said in an interview. "So there's probably some future fundraising which we can talk about."

Rocket Lab's investors to date include Khosla Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, DCVC (Data Collective), Lockheed Martin, Promus Ventures and K1W1. The government of New Zealand also approved an innovation grant to Rocket Lab during Electron's development.

"It's one thing to put one rocket on orbit, and it's another thing to back up that with the manufacturing facilities ad the business infrastructure to really go forward," Beck said. "If I reflect on this year, getting to orbit was great and was a lot of work, but we spent an equal amount of work this year on making sure that we can truly deliver on our launch cadence in the coming years."

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[Maks]

Примерный перевод. Смысл уловите.            

Ракета Электрон успешно запущена в Воскресенье со стартового комплекса на мысе Макия (с восточной части северного острова Новый Зеландии (т.к. им нечего есть, поэтому они работают и в воскресенье).Там есть такой маленький аппендикс. Мрачное место. Нет леса.Трава и скалы, Бегают какие-то зверушки, может вомбаты, но не кенгуру. Может овцы или лисы? Их видно на видно запуска).
Он вывел 6 спутников в космос на орбиту и тормозной парус — демонстратор на орбите.
Это первый успешный коммерческий запуск американской компании, которая работает и в Новой Зеландии. Планируется запускать спутники НАСА Кубосат до 16 полетов в следующем году этой ракетой легкого класса.

2-х ступенчастая ракета высотой более 17 м . Были запущены 8 ЖРД, работающие от топлива керосин и жидкий кислород, под названием Резерфорд в 10.50 вечера по местному времени 3.50 по гринвичу. Двигатель Резерфорд изготавливается за 24 часа трехмерной паечатью в Ракетной лаборатории в Калифорнии, т.е форсунки, основные клапана, камера сгорания. Он является самым принтеро печатаемым ракетным двигателем в мире. До конца года будет изготовлено 100 таких двигателей.
РН Электрон полетел на юг, нагло развивая примерно 24,9 тс тяги  от двигателей Резерфорд первой ступени в течении 2,5 минут.
Первая ступень выключилась и была отброшена (сжатым гелием наверное, который используется для наддува баков) от второй ступени (мне показалось, что степень расширения сопел 1 ступени недостаточна, т.е. они коротковаты, т.к у.и. всего 311 с у земли, 343 с в вакууме. И упали в тихий океан. Затем включился единственный двигатель второй ступени и вывел на полезную орбиту 7 полезных грузов. (Интересно смотреть на вибрации стенок сопла второй ступени.).

ЖРД Резерфорд, созданный в домашней Ракетной лаборатории ( это международная компания со штаб квартирой а Лос-анжелесе США и со стартовыми площадками на Аляске, Флориде, Окланде -новая Зеландия и многих других местах и странах, напримeр Chatham island в 800 км к юго востоку от Южного острова Новой Зеландии, где у него станция слежения).
проработал более 300 секунд,  вывел ракету на необходимую орбиту сообщив ей требуемую скорость.

Двигатель ЖРД Резерфорд использовал насос, работающий от батарей (наверное литиево полимерных), является инновационным изобретением для ЖРД (т.е. совершенно новым запатентованным изобретением, что очень редко) и все его главные (основные) компоненты насоса выполнены в трёхмерной печати, что уменьшило время изготовления и стоимость производства.
(Те образцы трехмерной печати которые я видел в Канаде имели очень низкую прочность и точность изготовления не лучше 0.2 мм.)

Про двигатель подробнее написано в Википедии про ракету Электрон.
Вторая ступень с двигателем под названием Кюри (производится в США, тяга 120 Н), через девять минут после подъема вышла на заданную эллиптическую орбиту с перигелием около (200 километров) и апогеем около 500 километров над Землей и наклоном орбиты 85 градусов,
Т.е. они будут засвинячивать Антарктиду, ео могут запускать спуиники летязие над южным полюсом.Т.е. для Австралии, Новой Зеландии.

Этап полета ступени Кюри(я так её называю потому что одноступенчатых ракет не бывает, которые выводят в космос спутники. Английский текст не верен с точки зрения инженеров. На видео запукска с видеокамеры, укстанвленной на 2 ступени, видно как вторая ступень отработала , отстрелилась. После платформа со спутниками начинает их устанавливать на орбиты по зажанному времени или говорят по программе.), которая взлетела над Антарктидой, а затем полетела на север над Атлантическим океаном, прежде чем запустить основной двигатель, который сжигает «зеленое» нетоксичное жидкое однокомпонентное унитарное топливо ( думаю, это перекись водорода. Наверное, вытеснительной системой подачи.). Горение, продолжающееся почти две минуты, было необходимым для выхода на круговую орбиту на высоте около 498,79 км. Затем выпустить 6 (шесть) спутников миссии, как было запланировано.

[tnt22]

Peter Beck‏ @Peter_J_Beck 5 ч. назад

The next one is getting ready to ship!

[Raul]

Maks, 
На первой ступени 9 РД (nine), а Кюри - это разгонный блок (kick stage), а не вторая ступень.

[PIN]

Старый пишет:
Неужели Пентагон позарится на это ? :oops:

Старый, в чем вопрос, почему вы удивлены?

[Apollo13]

Старый пишет:

Apollo13 пишет:
До них просто дошло то, о чем Пророк говорил 15 лет назад.

The biggest advantage any U.S. launch company has is access to the U.S. government as a customer. Not taking advantage of that is a really big mistake.

Неужели Пентагон позарится на это ?  :oops:  

НАСА ж позарилось.

After It's Business Time, the next Electron off the pad will be NASA's 19th Educational Launch of Nanosatellites mission, or ELaNa-XIX. The launch is manifested with innovative research and development payloads from NASA and educational institutions that will conduct a wide variety of new, on-orbit science. Applications of the CubeSats booked on the mission include research such as measuring radiation in the Van Allen belts to understand their impact on spacecraft, through to monitoring space weather. The mission is also NASA's first ever Venture Class Launch Services (VCLS) mission, constituting the smallest class of dedicated launch services used by NASA. It marks a significant milestone for Rocket Lab in providing such access to space for a NASA-sponsored mission of small satellites.