Rocket Lab is back with a bang. Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket booster returns to flight. The California based company’s two-staged electron rocket successfully completed the mission named return-to-flight. The mission was earlier a failure last month which was caused due to a small electronic fault. However, Rocket Lab worked on it and launched the electron rocket today, i.e. August 31.
Rocket Lab’s Electron Rocket: Everything you need to know
The launch came about at around 11:05 P.M EDT from Rocket Lab’s New Zealand website. There have notably been no issues this time. Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket booster is approximately 100 kgs (220 lb) Earth observation satellite. This is officially the company’s first flight of this mission since the last failure. Nonetheless, the company has proudly presented 13 other successful flights in the past.
The Electron Booster lofted a Satellite TV for pc referred to as Sequoia. ” Sequoia will be the first publically available satellite in the company’s Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) constellation,” wrote Rocket Lab’s representative in a project description.
The 57 foot (17 meters) electrons provide a space for the small satellites such as Sequoia to orbit.
Furthermore, the company is looking forward to making their flights reusable. They plan on recovering electrons first stage after the launch using a helicopter. The company representative also stated that Rocket Lab’s Electron Booster cannot contain enough fuel left over for landing. The booster is too small for the vertical landing that occurs in SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The company is consistently working on this. As a result, they have already given a demo of a helicopter catching a dummy booster in March this year.
