Rocket Lab successfully launches a small experimental satellite for DARPA

The small rocket launcher Rocket Lab has successfully completed its first flight of the year in New Zealand tonight, sending an experimental telecommunication satellite into orbit for DARPA. This is the third commercial flight of Rocket Lab's small rocket Electron and the fifth total flight of the young company, which has just launched rockets from 2017.

Nicknamed the R3D2 mission, the flight has put into orbit a small 100-kilogram satellite designed to test a new type of radio antenna. Made from a type of material called Kapton, the antenna is as thin as a tissue paper, but it is able to grow in space. The antenna launched on the rocket folded in a cartridge, and now that it is in orbit, it unfolds and unfolds in all its width, a width of more than seven feet. The design should provide more surface to reflect the radio waves.

If successful, this technology could become a useful option for small satellite operators who want to include larger and more powerful radio communications on their small vehicles. Moreover, according to Rocket Lab, this flight was made in a very short time. With this launch, DARPA wanted to demonstrate a relatively short schedule for the construction of a spacecraft and its launch into orbit. Rocket Lab announced that it had signed the contract with DARPA in the middle of last year and that it took only a few days to integrate the spacecraft into the rocket before launch – a process that usually takes months. "It's really real responsive access to space, which has been needed for a long time," says Peter Beck, CEO of Rocket Lab. The edge.

Delivering launches as quickly as possible is one of the ultimate goals of Rocket Lab, which attempts to capitalize on the small satellite revolution – the trend of spacecraft to be built ever smaller. The company's main vehicle, the electron, is just under 20 meters tall and is about the size of a five-story house. And it is able to place payloads weighing between 330 and 500 pounds in low Earth orbit. This is relatively small compared to large vehicles like the Falcon 9 or Atlas V, capable of burning tens of thousands of pounds in the same orbit. But ultimately, Rocket Lab's customers are all small satellite operators.

Now that this flight is over, Rocket Lab is aiming for another launch for April and will announce what mission it will be soon. According to Beck, one of the company's goals is to launch 12 flights this year. "We are slightly delayed for the beginning of this year of the [DARPA] payload, but that's the reality of the launch industry, "he says. But ultimately, the company has ambitions even more ambitious in the long term and hopes to be able to launch an Electron every three days when the company will enter its momentum.