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Rocketlab Launch Upcoming

#1
Yazata Offline
Rocketlab is planning to launch their Electron rocket from the Mahia peninsula on New Zealand's North Island

https://www.rocketlabusa.com/missions/next-mission/

Tentatively scheduled for NET (no earlier than) 04:30 UTC (16:30 NZST, 12:30 AM EDT Saturday June 29, 9:30 PM PDT Friday June 28.)

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/06/...e-mission/

Live video should be here:

www.rocketlabusa.com/live-stream

Payloads appear to be six satellites, one micro-satellite and five pico-sats. Classification of small satellites by mass here.

The biggest is BlackSky's Global 3, the third in a series of small earth observation satellites. It carries a little 24 cm reflecting telescope that will be trained on Earth and not out into space. It should be able to resolve objects as small as one meter on Earth. So it will be able to see houses and cars, but probably not people.

https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/blacksky-global.htm

Two are little Prometheus-2 satellites, tiny 1-U (4" by 4" by 4") cubesats built by Los Alamos National Laboratory for the US Special Operations Command. The idea is to evaluate how useful tiny communications satellites that cost less than $10,000 might be in low earth orbits for audio/video/data transmissions between commanders in the US and Special Operators in remote locations with little man-portable earth stations. (Like small satellite phones, I guess.)

https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/prometheus-2.htm

Two more are basically the same idea except private, little 1-U cubesats called SpaceBEEs. These belong to something called Swarm Technologies and are intended as communications relays for things like scientific instruments in remote locations. I can imagine them being useful for things like weather buoys out in the middle of the Pacific and things like that.

https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/spacebee-5.htm

Finally there's another tiny 1-U cubesat called Acrux 1, designed and built by something called the Melbourne Space Program, mostly engineering students at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/acrux-1.htm

Here's the Electron rocket at Rocketlab's NZ launch complex (Rocketlab photo) The US flag is because Rocketlab is a US company and the rockets are manufactured in Huntington Beach California. But they launch from New Zealand. (The pad is on the Mahia Peninsula on the east side of North Island, while mission control is in Auckland.)


[Image: Make-It-Rain-arrives-at-LC1.jpg]
[Image: Make-It-Rain-arrives-at-LC1.jpg]



This is BlackSky Global 3 undergoing integration at the NZ launch complex (Rocketlab photo)


[Image: BlackSky-Global-3-integration.jpg]
[Image: BlackSky-Global-3-integration.jpg]

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#3
Yazata Offline
The Rocketlab Electron just went and appears to have been a success.

Watch short video clips of the launch and stage separation here

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/stat...3795980288

(Jun 28, 2019 09:22 PM)C C Wrote: This provides links to a choice of map or satellite views of Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on Mahia Peninsula. Doesn't look like there are any public roads and nearby communities in the immediate vicinity to pose problems.

It looks pretty isolated out there (Rocketlab photo)


[Image: DP7ER0UUMAA9bXI.jpg]
[Image: DP7ER0UUMAA9bXI.jpg]



Here's a photo taken of the launch site Saturday afternoon NZ time from a very different angle (Rocketlab photo)


[Image: D-NCDG4UIAEBr5F.jpg]
[Image: D-NCDG4UIAEBr5F.jpg]



Quote:Rocket Lab Launch Complex 2 is on Wallops Island in Virginia.

They say that the Virginia launch site at Wallops Island should be ready by the end of the year. I guess that the big difference is that Wallops Island is already a major NASA launch facility and satellites (including space station supply capsules) are launched from there.

https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status/114...7996588034
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#4
Yazata Offline
Rocketlab said that they were going to have a big announcement today. It was streamed live and you can watch the whole presentation here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_conti...oONWIGtcdY

To make a long story short, after a bunch of very good videos of their rocket manufacturing and launching, and a report on their new Wallops Island launch pad (should be up and running by the end of the year), how they are trying to manufacture one Electron rocket per month, and news on their new satellite they are building to serve as a bus for customers' instruments and experiments (so that if a university of something wants to put up an experiment, they don't have to design an entire space vehicle to do it), they unveiled their big announcement:

They are going reusable. (Move over SpaceX.)

Animation of their concept for launching and recovering a booster (from the presentation above) here:

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/stat...9242445826

They say that they can't land their rockets propulsively because that would require them upsizing their small launch vehicles to medium launch vehicles, which would mean moving into Falcon 9 territory which would kind of defeat their model of low cost launches using cheap small launchers. So they are trying to figure out how to get their rockets back without SpaceX-style retro-rocket burns. Their little artist's-conception video of them doing it showed them using a ballute. Then a helicopter snags the rocket out of their air as it's descending. Elon Musk earlier floated the idea of recovering Falcon 9 second stages from orbital velocity by having them trail giant "party balloons" as hypersonic decelerators, but nothing seems to have come of that. Well, Rocketlab is actually going to try it.

Their Electron #8 which is already on the NZ pad has a special data recorder that will collect engineering data. #10 will start to include upgrades intended for eventual recovery. And #"N" (they aren't sure quite when they will try it) will be an attempted booster recovery. They emphasize how hard an engineering challenge this is (they call it "the Wall", reentry temperatures can reach 1/2 the temperature of the Sun, mechanical loading is extreme and lots of energy has to be lost somehow).

Well, I love to see them trying to push the envelope.


[Image: 1575328.jpg]
[Image: 1575328.jpg]



Comment on NSF is noting that Falcon 9's all broke up without retro-rocket burns, and wondering how Rocketlab plans to orient the returning booster without things like cold-gas thrusters or grid-fins, all of which will cost weight and eat into the small Electron rocket's payload margin.
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#5
C C Offline
(Aug 7, 2019 05:46 AM)Yazata Wrote: Well, I love to see them trying to push the envelope.

Comment on NSF is noting that Falcon 9's all broke up without retro-rocket burns, and wondering how Rocketlab plans to orient the returning booster without things like cold-gas thrusters or grid-fins, all of which will cost weight and eat into the small Electron rocket's payload margin.


Limited budget or limited size rocket may finally force the tree of innovation to bear fruit. SpaceX was once the "little guy" trying pull off new feats.
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#6
Yazata Offline
Rocketlab's tenth launch (just completed the other day) involved an upgraded Electron rocket with guidance and control systems for atmospheric reentry. (But no heat shield or entry rocket burn).

It reportedly didn't fragment and was transmitting telemetry all the way down until it hit the ocean in one piece. (It didn't have any parachutes.)

Rocketlab is encouraged by how well it did.

https://twitter.com/Peter_J_Beck/status/...7308829697

https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status/120...5388831744

It's still unclear how badly damaged it was by the heat of reentry, whether that damage can be reduced by some engineering changes, and whether it might someday be possible to reuse Electrons in whole or in part.

As CC noted in another thread, this launch created some interest, excitement and consternation in New Zealand when its just-before-dawn launch in that country rose and caught the Sun, creating a spectacular 'Space tadpole' display in the sky.

https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status/120...9004446723


[Image: ELF3vQZUwAAGf3X?format=jpg]
[Image: ELF3vQZUwAAGf3X?format=jpg]

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#8
Yazata Offline
Rocketlab has a launch upcoming from New Zealand at about 9:44 PM PDT, 12:44 EDT and 4:44 UTC Friday June 12-Saturday June 13

The mission is named Don't Stop Me Now, and proposes to launch five small satellites.

One of them is from NASA called Andesite and is intended to investigate the Earth's magnetic field. Another is M2 Pathfinder from the U. of New South Wales and the Australian government. The other three are from the US National Reconnaissance Office investigating the potential of small satellites as specialized cheap spy satellites.

https://twitter.com/NatReconOfc/status/1...6537379841

They don't intend to do any recovery tests with this rocket.

Edit: They are now targeting 10:13 PM PDT, 1:13 EDT, 5:13 UTC

It should be livestreamed here

www.rocketlabusa.com/live-stream

And here


https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/VRfm6RGVHf8

Edit 2 - 10:00 PM PDT - Livestream not on yet. Reports are that weather isn't cooperating.

Edit 3 - Stream just started!

Edit 4 - Looks like launch is currently go.

Edit 5 - Narrator says that later in the year, they plan to launch a tiny cubesat into orbit around the Moon for NASA! The purpose is to map the Moon's gravitational field to verify the stability of lunar orbits for NASA's Gateway lunar space station. (The Moon has a less uniform gravitational field than the Earth, stronger in some place and weaker in others.)

Edit: 6 - And it's off... Don't stop me now!! Stage separation. Second stage start. The 12th Rocketlab launch seems to have gone well. Satellites being deployed.
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#9
Yazata Offline
Rocketlab has another NZ launch (entitled 'Pics or it Didn't Happen') set for this afternoon US time. Payload appears to be a small satellite for Canon and six tiny cubesats.

Scheduled for 9:19 NZT, 17:19 EDT, 14:19 PDT, 21:19 UTC

The RocketLab feed will be live on this weeks NSF Live streaming video show... if the launch happens. Weather is currently iffy down in NZ.

https://twitter.com/nextspaceflight/stat...5126105088

The NSF Live show will be here. (It's a group of space-nerds talking about space stuff, like the Mars 2020 rover set to launch soon. Chris Cassidy's and Bob Behnken's recent ISS spacewalks, and the new Raptor engine at Boca). Worth watching even if RocketLab is a scrub. (Elon watches the NSF nerds covering his Boca tests, he called them "Mystery Science Theater 3000"!)


https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/c8AWp2RgKDc

Rocketlab's own stream will be here. It will be the same RocketLab video that NSF will show, but Rocketlab's own commentary


https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/5ZcZoDFYjXc

The Electron Rocket on the NZ pad (RocketLab photo)


[Image: EcGrcCrVAAE_cn6?format=jpg&name=4096x4096]
[Image: EcGrcCrVAAE_cn6?format=jpg&name=4096x4096]



The payload. The larger (but still small) CE SAT 1B satellite belongs to Canon Electronics and is designed to test photographic technology in space. And the six little cubesats in the dispensers labelled 'Maxwell'. These are proprietary spring-loaded RocketLab cubesat dispensers that open up and expel the tiny pico-satellites. (RocketLab photo)


[Image: EcGS4mGVcAILFfI?format=jpg&name=4096x4096]
[Image: EcGS4mGVcAILFfI?format=jpg&name=4096x4096]

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#10
Yazata Offline
The RocketLab launch failed.

The first stage worked well, the second stage lit, but when they tried to switch batteries that power its fuel pumps, the engine seems to have quit and telemetry was lost.

Rocketlab has verified loss of the vehicle.
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