YazataMay 21, 2017 08:15 PM (This post was last modified: May 22, 2017 01:14 PM by Yazata.)
New Zealand isn't just a small country full of nice scenery and farms. It's reaching for the stars.
A NZ/US company called Rocket Lab has developed a low-cost disposable booster capable of lofting up to 300 pounds into low Earth orbit. They say that they hope to get the cost down to $5 million (US) per launch, a small fraction of current costs. They have built a launch facility on the Mahia peninsula on the eastern coast of North Island and hope to launch their first rocket on Monday May 22 (Sunday evening US time). Mission control will be in Rocket Lab's Auckland facility, while much of the engineering and manufacturing takes place in Huntington Beach California.
Actually this first test won't carry a satellite and is just a test of the launch vehicle. They plan several tests like this before a paying customer puts a satellite aboard.
If Rocket Lab's plans work out, NZ could end up sending satellites (little satellites to be sure) into orbit at a faster rate than the United States launches satellites. Rocket Lab's launch facility is licensed by the NZ government for 100 launches a year for 30 years. (The site was chosen to be remote from commercial air routes.)
YazataMay 22, 2017 01:06 PM (This post was last modified: May 22, 2017 01:18 PM by Yazata.)
Update:
New Zealand's first orbital launch had to be postponed on account of high winds. (Just from the looks of it, I'm guessing that wind might be a common problem at the site they've chosen for their launch pad.) It's tentatively been pushed back 24 hours, but they say that they have a ten day launch window and want conditions to be ideal.
Kind of an indirect confidence-builder for Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. If NZ's small population can put payloads into orbit, then "let's starve a few more of our country comrades and get that weapons platform into an elliptical path".
(May 22, 2017 06:30 PM)C C Wrote: Kind of an indirect confidence-builder for Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. If NZ's small population can put payloads into orbit, then "let's starve a few more of our country comrades and get that weapons platform into an elliptical path".
North Korea/GDP per capita===$583.00 USD (2014)
New Zealand/GDP per capita=$37,807.97 USD (2015)
37500 = roughly 74 times the size
thus ...
DPRK would need to starve to death 74 times more people than they have at the moment. Population: 25.16 million (2015) World Bank
thus if one was to assert there was mathamatical logic to the arguement based on comparative size.
where are they going to get the other 3.75 billion people to starve to death from ?
puzzling over my math as to the relative comparative, if it relates to the population size of NZ as an absolute since NZ GDP is sited as normative thus actual populationof DPRK is irrelivant.
im about 95% sure im roughly correct.
(May 22, 2017 06:47 PM)RainbowUnicorn Wrote: where are they going to get the other 3.75 billion people to starve to death from ?
Intended to be a facetious poke at the ever-inflating ego of the ruling family's cult personality, which is receptive to many external stimulants.
But even if taking "how to squeeze blood from turnips" seriously, we might relatedly ask how such a supposedly unprofitable system already managed to become #23 in military strength out of 126, despite sanctions and other economic drawbacks. Replete with a horde of rocket launchers and potential nuclear capabilities garnering international attention / concern.
(May 22, 2017 06:47 PM)RainbowUnicorn Wrote: where are they going to get the other 3.75 billion people to starve to death from ?
Intended to be a facetious poke at the ever-inflating ego of the ruling family's cult personality, which is receptive to many external stimulants.
But even if taking "how to squeeze blood from turnips" seriously, we might relatedly ask how such a supposedly unprofitable system already managed to become #23 in military strength out of 126, despite sanctions and other economic drawbacks. Replete with a horde of rocket launchers and potential nuclear capabilities garnering international attention / concern.
indeed. you have not missed my attempt to mix math with correlative turpitude for a real world cause & effect.
was pondering to add the relative cost of nuclear weapons to the long term economic & social animal however decided it flagrantly obviouse to an obstuse construct.
is peace & civility a symptomatic disease of massive militarisation ?
YazataMay 25, 2017 08:54 PM (This post was last modified: May 25, 2017 11:33 PM by Yazata.)
Launch took place on Thursday (NZ time, way ahead of the US). This was a test of the rocket, so it didn't have a satellite aboard and carried engineering instrumentation instead. First stage worked well, stages separated, second stage lit, and it reached space but the second stage apparently failed to go completely into orbit as expected. They aren't sure why and will be examining their telemetry data.
The on-board camera on the first stage is pretty bad, but much better on the second stage.
Payload was 13 little cubesats. Ten were part of NASA's Elana 19 package, consisting of small R&D satellites from universities and places like that, with the remaining three from the Aerospace Corporation and DARPA.
Radar has catalogued 15 objects in that orbit. The other two are probably parts of the rocket that carried and ejected the little satellites.
Jonathan McDowell identifies ten of the 13 cubesats here:
I was pleased to see that another of the little cubesats came from Cal Poly, where I was a biology undergraduate, way back in the day. (Some of the best years of my life. I'm very fond of the place.) It's their eleventh satellite, a 3-u (three cubes) cubesat called ISX, 'Ionospheric Scintillation Explorer' and is intended to research radio propagation in the ionosphere in conjunction with SRI International.
May 21, 2017 08:15 PM
(This post was last modified: May 22, 2017 01:14 PM by Yazata.)
![[Image: ISX+Website.jpg?format=500w]](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5705834a22482e383159daaa/t/5b0f5e632b6a28f41d20b601/1527733877781/ISX+Website.jpg?format=500w)