You might recall that Rocketlab has a NASA contract to put a small satellite into orbit around the Moon to map out the Moon's gravitational field. It's supposed to be launched next year on an Electron rocket.
Well, here's a Rocketlab photo of the Moon satellite. Human in the photo for scale
Edit - From the looks of those shiny spherical tanks, I think that this is a modified Photon bus, basically a little third stage that will go atop the Electron's second stage. The actual payload might not be much larger than a cell-phone, just a few inches. Plus antennas, batteries and maybe solar panels that haven't been installed yet.
The Photon actually can go interplanetary and Rocketlab has plans to send a couple of them in company funded missions all the way to Venus, a planet that's a particular interest to Rocketlab founder Peter Beck. Mars gets all the attention because it's so Earthlike, but Venus is more mysterious (if hellish). The plan seems to be to drop small cubesat sized payloads into the Venusian atmosphere.
Well, here's a Rocketlab photo of the Moon satellite. Human in the photo for scale
Edit - From the looks of those shiny spherical tanks, I think that this is a modified Photon bus, basically a little third stage that will go atop the Electron's second stage. The actual payload might not be much larger than a cell-phone, just a few inches. Plus antennas, batteries and maybe solar panels that haven't been installed yet.
The Photon actually can go interplanetary and Rocketlab has plans to send a couple of them in company funded missions all the way to Venus, a planet that's a particular interest to Rocketlab founder Peter Beck. Mars gets all the attention because it's so Earthlike, but Venus is more mysterious (if hellish). The plan seems to be to drop small cubesat sized payloads into the Venusian atmosphere.