Electron - ракета компании Rocket Lab

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 Peter Beck‏ @Peter_J_Beck 15 ч. назад

More and more rockets are coming down the production line.~ Every 30 days a new Electron is born.

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 Peter Beck‏ @Peter_J_Beck 5 ч. назад

The test team just finished up flight 10's stage test! It will be heading out to the pad soon with flight 9 clearing out and launching next week.

Video

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https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status/1181632185792548864

 Rocket Lab‏ @RocketLab  
    The term responsive space gets used a lot these days. But what does it actually mean? To Rocket Lab, it means launch vehicles, launch sites and satellites on demand - ready for launch when our customers are.

 

           11:07 - 8 окт. 2019 г.  

 Rocket Lab @RocketLab 14 ч.14 часов назад
   Each part of Rocket Lab's launch experience is tailored for frequent and streamlined access to space. It means launch vehicles built in days, launch sites that can support 130 mission per year and Photon satellites ready for integration and deployment on a moment's notice.

 

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Rocket Lab @RocketLab 4 мин. назад

The #FAA has issued Rocket Lab with a Launch Operator License for Electron missions from LC-1! This is a key step in making Electron the most frequently launched vehicle in the world.




2 мин. назад

All Electron missions so far have been carried out under various launch-specific FAA licenses. With our new @FAANews Launch Operator License, we can perform multiple Electron launches from LC-1 for the next 5 years, without the need for a new license every time.




1 мин. назад

The result? A streamlined path to orbit for our customers. Efficient licensing supports frequent launch opportunities and truly responsive space access, and we're thrilled to be delivering this for small sats.

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Peter Beck‏ @Peter_J_Beck 13 ч. назад

Honored to be selected by the Air Force @AF_SMC to provide responsive and flexible launch services under OSP-4. Electron was designed for exactly this type of mission and Rocket Lab has demonstrated this rapid launch capability many times.

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 Rocket Lab @RocketLab 3 мин. назад

Today's mission will lift off from Launch Complex 1, but our second launch site is almost ready for Electron missions from U.S. soil. This week the iconic strongback was installed at LC-2 at @VCSFA_MARS on Wallops Island, Virginia.

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/10/17/rocket-lab-delivers-on-dedicated-launch-for-astro-digital/

Rocket Lab delivers on dedicated launch for Astro Digital
October 17, 2019 | Stephen Clark


In this view fr om the Electron rocket's second stage, Rocket Lab's Curie kick stage with the Palisade satellite is seen backdropped by the Earth around 10 minutes after liftoff. Credit: Rocket Lab

A technology demonstration microsatellite for Astro Digital rode a Rocket Lab Electron launcher into orbit Wednesday (U.S. time) fr om New Zealand, setting the stage for the debut of new systems on the next Electron flight as engineers move closer to retrieving and reusing the rocket's first stage.

The 55-foot-tall (17-meter) Electron rocket fired nine Rutherford engines with nearly 50,000 pounds of thrust at 9:22 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0122 GMT Thursday) to climb off its launch pad on Mahia Peninsula, the home of Rocket Lab's privately-run spaceport on on New Zealand's North Island.

Liftoff occurred at 2:22 p.m. local time in New Zealand to begin Rocket Lab's ninth Electron mission, and the fifth this year.

Heading south from the launch base, the Electron shed its nine-engine first stage around two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff. Moments later, the second stage's single Rutherford engine ignited to continue the journey into space.

Powered by electric pumps, the Rutherford engine guided the Electron rocket into an on-target parking orbit around nine minutes into the mission, before the launcher deployed Rocket Lab's Curie kick stage to complete the job of placing Astro Digital's Palisade microsatellite into its final orbit.

A camera mounted to the tumbling Electron second stage beamed down dazzling live views of the Curie kick stage and the Palisade spacecraft.

Rocket Lab's live webcast of the mission ended after the launcher reached its preliminary orbit. The company later confirmed the Curie kick stage completed its orbit adjustment maneuver, then released the Palisade satellite around 71 minutes after liftoff.

"Perfect final orbit and deployment," tweeted Peter Beck, Rocket Lab's CEO. "Flawless mission!"

The launch vehicle injected the Palisade spacecraft into a nearly circular polar orbit with an average altitude of around 745 miles, or 1,200 kilometers, at an inclination of 87.8 degrees, according to U.S. military tracking data.

The Curie kick stage flown on Wednesday's mission included a performance enhancement. The kick stage's engine previously used a single "green" non-toxic fuel — a monopropellant system, in propulsion parlance — while the upgraded engine is fed by a green bi-propellant mixture with a fuel and an oxidizer.

After releasing Astro Digital's Palisade satellite, the Curie kick stage reignited to drop out of orbit, according to Rocket Lab.

"Just completed perfect de-orbit burn of the kick stage making sure we don't leave junk in space for generations to come," Beck tweeted.

The Electron rocket that launched Wednesday, known as "Flight 9," was originally assigned to ferry a different payload into orbit, Beck said in a recent interview. Rocket Lab did not identify the satellite that was replaced by Astro Digital's Palisade spacecraft.

"Congratulations to the Astro Digital team for readying the spacecraft and taking advantage of an earlier launch opportunity," Beck said in a post-launch press release. "Our teams worked closely to deliver a flawless mission in a demonstration of the truly responsive space launch that small satellites need."

Rocket Lab was the first in a new wave of startup launch companies to enter commercial operations with a small satellite launch vehicle. The Electron rocket, with a base price of $5.7 million, is sized to carry up to 330 pounds (150 kilograms) into a 310-mile-high (500-kilometer) sun-synchronous orbit, allowing small satellite operators to buy dedicated rides to space rather than purchasing excess capacity on a larger launcher.

"No longer do small satellite operators have to accept the limitations of flying as a secondary payload, nor do they have to wait endlessly on the manifest of unproven launch vehicles," Beck said. "Frequent, responsive, and reliable launch is the new norm for small satellites thanks to Electron."

Rocket Lab aims to debut an upgraded Electron first stage on the company's next mission, set for late November.

The first stage on the next Electron rocket, designated Flight 10, will feature several changes to help Rocket Lab prepare for an eventual attempt to recover the booster with a helicopter on a future flight. Rocket Lab announced in August plans to retrieve and reuse Electron first stages, primarily to achieve a planned cadence of one launch per week.

Rocket Lab determined production bottlenecks were a major factor inhibiting such a rapid launch rate. Reusing rockets could ease the burden on Rocket Lab's factories in New Zealand and California, the company says.

The company installed a data recorder on an Electron rocket launched in August to collect information on the environments the first stage sees when it comes back to Earth, before eventually breaking apart in the atmosphere.

Beck told Spaceflight Now in a recent interview that the data obtained during the August launch showed that designing the Electron first stage to survive re-entry will be difficult.

"We knew it's hard, but we certainly learned that it is hard," Beck said. "We did get some good initial data from the flight (in August), but really Flight 10 is wh ere it's all going to happen. That's wh ere we're pushing really deep with the stage. That stage has a full telemetry system, there's RCS (reaction control system thrusters) to guide it into the entry corridor. We expect to go quite deep (into the atmosphere) with that flight."

The next Electron launch will not carry a decelerator or a parachute. Those systems will be installed on later rockets to enable a recovery of the booster first from the ocean, then via helicopter, Beck said.

"It's purely to just punch it into the atmosphere, fully guided, as deep as we can and gather data," he said. "Flight 10 is about pushing it deep into the atmosphere and really understanding the hypersonic flow and the heating regime."

SpaceX uses cold gas thrusters to re-orient its Falcon 9 first stages, then reignites a subset of the Falcon 9's Merlin engines to slow down for propulsive landings, using thrust and grid fins to steer it back to a drone ship at sea or toward an onshore recovery site.

Rocket Lab is taking a different approach.

Because the Electron rocket is much smaller than the Falcon 9, there's not enough leftover propellant to attempt a propulsive landing.

"We don't intend to use grid fins," Beck said. "We have other types of measures. The most important thing on this (next) one is the active guidance with the RCS and making sure we maintain a really tight corridor with the base heat shield first, and just push it as deep as we can go."

The Palisade spacecraft launched Wednesday — about the size of a small suitcase — is designed for a technology demonstration mission, according to Astro Digital, a company based in Silicon Valley. It carries an on-board propulsion system, an Astro Digital-developed communications system, and software developed by Advanced Solutions Inc., a Colorado company.

"Our team built this satellite in five months, including the complex RF (communications) payload, something we are very proud of," said Chris Biddy, co-founder and CEO of Astro Digital.

The company did not provide details on the type of communications technology it will test on the Palisade satellite, or the services the payload could provide to customers.

Astro Digital has launched four small "Landmapper" CubeSats for a planned fleet of Earth observation satellites. The company has "evolved" its strategy to support a broader range of satellite missions, Biddy told Spaceflight Now.

"We were able to prove our core satellite platform technology with our first Landmapper satellites and have now expanded and evolved into supporting a diverse range of missions leveraging our experience," Biddy said. "We started as an Earth observation company. Now we are an end-to-end mission provider supporting broad LEO-based missions."

Rocket Lab named Wednesday's mission "As The Crow Flies" as a nod to Astro Digital's Corvus satellite platform, upon which the Palisade mission is built. Corvus is a genus of birds that includes crows.

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VCSFA_MARS‏ @VCSFA_MARS 2 ч. назад

Happy One Year Anniversary! What a difference a year makes! This time last year @VCSFA_MARS broke ground on the future home of @RocketLab's LC-2 @NASA_Wallops and today we're securing the strongback to the launch mount. Can't wait to see what next year brings!
#Electron

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https://www.rocketlabusa.com/news/updates/rocket-lab-to-deliver-payloads-to-the-moon-and-beyond-with...

Rocket Lab to deliver payloads to the Moon and beyond with Photon                                  
                   
Rocket Lab to deliver payloads to the Moon and beyond with Photon


Extended  range Photon missions to medium, geostationary and lunar orbits will  support deeper space exploration and the return of human presence on the  moon


International Astronautical Congress. Washington DC. 21  October 2019 – Rocket Lab, the global leader in dedicated small  satellite launch, has today unveiled plans to support extended range  missions to medium, geostationary, and lunar orbits with the company's  Photon satellite platform.


Less than two years after opening  access to low Earth orbit (LEO) for small satellites with the Electron  launch vehicle, Rocket Lab is now bringing medium, geostationary, and  lunar orbits within reach for small satellites. Rocket Lab will combine  its Electron launch vehicle, Photon small spacecraft platform, and a  dedicated bulk maneuver stage to accomplish extended-range missions and  deliver small spacecraft to lunar flyby, Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit  (NRHO), L1/L2 points, or Lunar orbit. These capabilities can then be  expanded to deliver even larger payloads throughout cis-lunar space,  including as high as geostationary orbit (GEO).


Rocket Lab Founder  and Chief Executive, Peter Beck, says there is increasing international  interest in lunar and beyond LEO exploration from government and  private sectors.


"Small satellites will play a crucial role in  science and exploration, as well as providing communications and  navigation infrastructure to support returning humans to the Moon – they  play a vital role as pathfinders to retire risk and lay down  infrastructure for future missions," he says. "Just like LEO small  spacecraft, many potential exploration instruments and full satellites  are on shelves waiting for launch to deeper space. In the same way we  opened access to LEO for smallsats, Rocket Lab is poised to become the  dedicated ride to the Moon and beyond for small satellites."


The  experience gained through multiple orbital Electron launches, and  iterative performance improvements to Photon's Curie propulsion system,  enables Rocket Lab to undertake extended range missions with proven  technology and significant experience. All systems for extended missions  are derived from high-heritage flight-proven equipment, including the  Curie engine, Kick Stage, Electron composite tanks, and demonstrated  expertise in launch and spacecraft guidance, navigation and control.


Rocket  Lab's most recent mission, 'As The Crow Flies', was the company's 9th  Electron launch and it saw Electron's Kick Stage deploy a payload to an  altitude of more than 1,000 km. The mission successfully demonstrated  recent upgrades to the 3D-printed Curie propulsion system for Photon,  including the move to a bi-propellant design for greatly improved  performance.


Photon in particular was architected for use in both  LEO and interplanetary missions, with radiation-tolerant avionics, deep  space-capable communications and navigation technology, and  high-performance space-storable propulsion capable of multiple restarts  on orbit. The combination of Photon and Electron has been designed as a  complete solution for responsive LEO, MEO and cis-lunar missions, as  early as Q4 2020.


ENDS


About Photon:
The  Photon spacecraft is an advanced evolution of the Electron's  flight-proven Kick Stage. With Electron and Photon, Rocket Lab can  provide the platform for an entire small satellite mission, including  launch, ground segment and spacecraft bus.


Operating an advanced  integration of the 3D printed Curie propulsion system, Photon  incorporates high power generation, high-accuracy attitude determination  and control, and radiation-tolerant avionics to provide a bundled  launch-plus-satellite offering to customers. Photon is an approximately  50 kg wet mass platform, capable of carrying up to 170 kg of payload to  low-Earth orbit.


As a high-power and radiation-tolerant vehicle  that supports deep space communication and navigation, Photon has been  designed with missions beyond LEO in mind. Because Photon is a  fully-featured spacecraft, and not simply an injection stage, Photon can  deploy a stand-alone payload and still host additional smaller  payloads, enabling multiple missions on the one launch.


Photon supports missions that require:
• Precise orbital deployment,
• Deployment of multiple payloads to different planes/inclinations (rideshares and constellations),
• Lunar flyby, Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO), L1/L2 points, or low-Lunar orbit,
• Higher orbits that cannot be achieved with launch vehicles alone,
• A hosted platform for payloads requiring propulsion, power, and downlink,
• Payload deorbiting upon mission completion.

 

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 Rocket Lab‏ @RocketLab 15 мин. назад

Exciting news for small sats. We've partnered with @KSAT_Kongsberg to provide ground station support for Electron and Photon. It means Rocket Lab now offers a complete mission service: spacecraft, launch and ground segment. It's yet another way we're streamlining access to orbit.

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https://www.rocketlabusa.com/news/updates/rocket-lab-partners-with-kongsberg-satellite-services-for-electron-and-photon-ground-station-support/

Rocket Lab partners with Kongsberg Satellite Services for Electron and Photon ground station support

Rocket Lab partners with Kongsberg Satellite Services for Electron and Photon ground station support

The partnership enables small satellite operators to procure complete mission services from Rocket Lab, including spacecraft design and build, launch and ground segment management.

International Astronautical Congress, Washington, D.C. 22 October 2019 – Rocket Lab, the global leader in dedicated small satellite launch, has partnered with Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT), the world's largest provider of ground station services, to be the sole provider of ground station services for the Electron launch vehicle and Photon satellite bus customers. The agreement sees Rocket Lab deliver a complete solution for small satellite operators, including satellite design and build, launch, and ground segment support leveraging an existing global network of ground stations.

Rocket Lab's Electron launch vehicle is currently the only commercial, dedicated small satellite launch vehicle operating a regular service to orbit, making space more accessible for small satellites. With a proven launch vehicle in operation since January 2018, the next evolution of Rocket Lab's mission services is the Photon satellite bus. Designed for seamless pairing with Electron, the Photon satellite bus streamlines the entire end-to-end satellite experience for customers from design to build to launch.

Likewise, KSAT's KSATlite ground network is designed and optimized for small satellite systems, providing streamlined access (through standardized API driven interfaces) and scalable support that grows to meet mission needs.

The closely integrated partnership with KSAT now provides launch to operations ground segment support for Photon customers – the final piece for small satellite operators seeking an end-to-end mission partner.  This enables small satellite operators to focus on what really matters—their applications and their customers—freeing engineering time and capital from having to develop a spacecraft platform, secure a launch, and coordinate access to ground stations from different providers.

The partnership between Rocket Lab and KSAT provides Photon customers downlink and uplink capabilities in UHF, S-band, X-band, and Ka-band across a global ground station network of over 200 antennas that supports 50,000 contacts per month.

Rocket Lab Chief Executive and Founder, Peter Beck, says, "Rocket Lab's partnership with KSAT will play an important role in continuing to streamline the path to orbit for small satellite operators. We solved the launch challenge when Rocket Lab began regular and reliable launch services in January 2018. Now we're simplifying the spacecraft side of the equation with the combination of Photon and KSAT's ground network support."

Head of KSAT USA, Katherine Monson, says, "We are witnessing an enormous rise in demand for data from small satellites in space, yet the challenges of procuring launch, building your own spacecraft and then having to coordinate ground communications can be time and cost prohibitive. Our partnership with Rocket Lab and its Photon customers means small satellite operators will now have access to reliable, scalable services across our global network – starting with support on a per-pass basis and options to move to full antennas as their communication demand grows. KSAT is proud to be the bridge back to Earth for both the Electron launch vehicle and Photon customer payloads. Together we are hoping to make space more accessible, through cost-efficient access and proven mission assurance."

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 Brady Kenniston‏ @TheFavoritist 21 мин. назад

LC-2 basking in Virginia sun. An enormous amount of work has been done since my last visit here in April.

Godspeed @RocketLab!

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Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1

 Rocket Lab

5 нояб. 2019 г.

Join Amanda Stiles, Director of Mission Management and Integration, as we take you on a tour of Rocket Lab's Launch Complex 1. Located on the Mahia Peninsula on New Zealand's East Coast, LC-1 is the best spot in the world to launch more frequently than anywhere else on the planet.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/U1j8ldnZ-gM (4:44)

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 Peter Beck‏ @Peter_J_Beck 8 мин. назад

Getting ready for Stage 1 recovery, spot the differences!

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 Rocket Lab‏ @RocketLab 26 мин. назад

Say hi to LC-1's newest range tracking asset. This 5.0m diameter dish gives us the ability to track Electron to Stage 2/ Stage 3 separation from LC-1. It also allows us to retask other tracking assets to support the recovery of Electron's 1st stage as we work towards reusability.

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 Rocket Lab @RocketLab 3 мин. назад

A launch day is the culmination of years of work for our customers, so we're making sure they have a front row seat for lift-off. Our new launch experience facility will offer panoramic views of the pad at LC-1. It's a spine-tingling way to watch your payload go to orbit.

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 Rocket Lab‏ @RocketLab 39 мин. назад

Launch Complex 2's new strongback is looking

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 Rocket Lab‏ @RocketLab 20 мин. назад

Tomorrow, less than a year after construction started, we're officially opening our first launch site on U.S. soil. We'll be hosting a webcast at 11:00 am ET/ 8:00 am PT where you can hear from our CEO Peter Beck and others about the first scheduled LC-2 mission.

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Rocket Lab‏ @RocketLab 11 ч. назад

Tomorrow we officially open LC-2! Tune in to the webcast to hear about our first scheduled mission from Electron's newest home. Our CEO @Peter_J_Beck will be joined by representatives from @VCSFA_MARS, @NASA_Wallops and more.

12 December, 11:00 ET

youtube.com/watch?v=vu-ZisFbjFo

Начало трансляции В 19:00 ДМВ

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 Rocket Lab @RocketLab 4 мин. назад

We're thrilled to confirm the 1st Electron launch from LC-2 will be a dedicated mission for the @usairforce Space Test Program in Q2 2020. It's an honor to be providing access to orbit for STP once again following the first STP launch on Electron from LC-1 earlier this year.