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Updated November 20 at 7:00 am, with scene recovery.
WASHINGTON – Rocket Lab launched its Electron rocket on November 19, putting nearly 30 small satellites into orbit during its first attempt to recover the first stage of the rocket.
The Electron took off from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand, at 9:20 pm EST on a mission called “Return to Sender” by the company. The rocket’s launch stage deployed its payload of 29 small satellites into a sun-synchronous orbit of 500 kilometers about an hour after takeoff.
Of greater interest to many, however, in Rocket Lab’s effort to recover the first stage of the rocket. The company announced on November 5 that it would attempt to re-enter the stage, deploy a drug and a main parachute, and then submerge the stage into the Pacific Ocean about 400 kilometers downstream from the launch site.
“This is a comprehensive combined test, a conclusion of a number of tests we have done,” said Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab, during a briefing to announce his plan to attempt to recover the scene.
Early indications were that the recovery demonstration went as planned, with the scene surviving re-entry and deploying drugs and main parachutes, Rocket Lab said. Beck then tweeted a photo of the scene floating in the water next to a salvage boat, apparently intact and undamaged.
Welcome to Earth Electron! pic.twitter.com/lI39kLAS4Z
– Peter Beck (@Peter_J_Beck) November 20, 2020
“What the team achieved today by recovering the first leg of Electron is no small feat. It took a monumental effort on the part of many teams at Rocket Lab, and it is exciting to see this work paying off in a major step towards making Electron a reusable rocket, ”Beck said in a statement after. the start.
Rocket Lab announced last year that it would attempt to salvage and reuse the first stage. Beck had originally rejected any attempt to reclaim the stage due to its small size, but became convinced that it would be possible if the stage could survive through what he called “the back-to-school wall”. slowing the scene sufficiently so that the parachutes can then deploy for the remaining phase of the descent.
The company separately tested various aspects of the recovery system, including guiding two stages during reentry and performing parachute deployment tests. This flight, however, was the first attempt to put the components together, allowing the stage to splash at a speed of around 10 meters per second.
“A lot of that is due to the mass and size constraints we face,” said Matt Darley, head of recovery systems at Rocket Lab, during a company webcast about the launch. Assembling the parachutes, reaction control system and other equipment necessary for recovery in the limited volume available in the first stage “was probably our biggest challenge.
Rocket Lab will use a ship to lift the scene out of the water and bring it back to land, where it will be studied at the company’s factory. Beck said they did not attempt to perform a first-stage in-flight recovery using a helicopter – something the company demonstrated in drop tests earlier this year – because they did not know what state the stage would be in.
The company continued to recover and reuse the first stage to allow it to increase its theft rate without having to expand its plant. “Even if we only use the stage once more, it effectively doubles production,” Beck said earlier this month. “One reuse is a really huge benefit.”
The recovery effort eclipsed the launch itself, the 16 of the Electron rocket. It has placed 24 Spacebee satellites, each 0.25U, into orbit by Swarm Technologies. The satellites are part of a constellation of 150 satellites that will provide Internet of Things services.
The Electron also transported two satellites for Unseenlabs, a French company developing a constellation for radio frequency tracking of ships. TriSept’s DRAGRACER mission deployed two small satellites, one fitted with a tether to test technology that could shorten its deorbitation time from several years to as little as 45 days. The APSS-1 cubesat built by students from the University of Auckland in New Zealand will study the Earth’s ionosphere.
In addition to the 29 small satellites, the Electron carried an additional payload: a 15 centimeter high 3D printed titanium mass simulator in the form of a gnome, nicknamed “Gnome Chompski” after a character in the series. of “Half-Life” video games. The gnome, which will remain attached to the rocket kicking scene, was funded by Gabe Newell, founder of video game company Valve Software.
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