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Rocket Lab's Electron booster launched six small satellites and a drag sail demonstrator to orbit Sunday from New Zealand, a success on the company's first commercial mission that officials said the way for a launching NASA CubeSats next month and up to 16 flights of the light-class rocket next year.
The two-stage rocket, standing more than 55 feet (17 meters) tall, fired its nine kerosene-fueled Rutherford main engines at 0350 GMT Sunday (10:50 pm EST Saturday) and climbed away from Launch Complex 1, Rocket Lab's privately- operated spaceport on Mahia Peninsula, located on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island.
The Electron arced toward the south from the Mahia Peninsula, riding nearly 50,000 pounds of thrust from the Rutherford engines during a two-and-a-half minute first stage burn.
The booster shut down and dropped away from the Electron's second stage, heading for a plunge into the Pacific Ocean, as a single Rutherford engine fired to propel the upper part of the rocket and its seven payloads into a preliminary orbit.
The Rutherford engine, developed by Rocket Lab, has been updated to six or more minutes. The engine uses pumps, an innovation for a liquid-fueled rocket engine, and all its primary components are 3D-printed, reducing the cost and time required during manufacturing.
Rocket Lab's Curie Kick-in-the-wind Electron second stage around nine minutes after liftoff, in an elliptical orbit with a low point around 120 miles (200 kilometers) and a high point around 310 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth, and an inclination of 85 degrees.
The Curie kick stage is then over Antarctica, then flew to the Atlantic Ocean before igniting its main engine, which burns to a "green" non-toxic liquid monopropellant. A crash lasting nearly two minutes to reach the altitude of the launch of the mission's orbit at an altitude of around 310 miles before release of the mission's six satellite passengers.
Rocket Lab in its live webcast of all six satellites separated as planned.
First deployed from the Curie kick stage was the IRVINE01 CubeSat built by students in Southern California, followed by two ship-tracking and weather data collection craft for Spire Global, two pathfinder data relay satellites from Fleet Space Technologies, and the CICERO 10 commercial weather satellite built by Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems for GeoOptics.
Perfect flight. Orbital accuracy was exquisite. Let's do it again in a few weeks time!
– Peter Beck (@Peter_J_Beck) November 11, 2018
Peter Beck, Rocket Lab's Founder and CEO, said the Electron rocket's orbital accuracy was "exquisite" on Sunday's mission, setting the stage for another CubeSats sponsored by NASA and developed at US institutions and universities .
The launch window for the next Dec. 10 and extend to Dec. 18, according to NASA-funded mission.
Rocket Lab's Electron Rocket, following a pair of test flights in May 2017 and in the company named "It's a Test" and "Still Testing." Last year's inaugural Electron mission fell short of orbit, but the Electron launches in a small planet orbit, including a geodesic sphere dubbed "Humanity Star" covered in reflective panels designed to make it visible from Earth.
The Electron rocket is capable of placing up to 330 pounds (150 kilograms) of payload in a orbit around 310 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth. The rocket's capacity to a lower-altitude orbit is up to 500 pounds (225 kilograms).
Founded in New Zealand and United States, Rocket Lab says it can launch an Electron rocket for $ 5.7 million, more expensive rockets, which often launch large clusters of smallsats at a time.
The launch of the Rocket Lab, which was named "It's Business Time."
Rocket Lab planned to launch "It's Business Time" mission in April, but engineers discovered a problem with a motor controller during a fueling test. The controller woes continued during a launch attempt in June, and Rocket Lab stood out from the launch to resolve the issue.
The Electron rocket finally launched Sunday on the first attempt after the months-long delay.
"The world is waking up to the new normal. With the Electron, "Beck said in a statement after Sunday's launch. "We're thrilling to reach out to small business by reaching orbit at second time and deploying more payloads. The team carried out a flawless flight with incredibly accurate orbital insertion. "
Two satellites launched on the Electron rocket Sunday are owned by Spire Global, a San Francisco-based company which builds and operates a fleet of CubeSats collecting weather data and tracking maritime traffic. The Lemur-2 satellites are about the size of a shoebox, and also carry instrumentation to track aircraft in flight.
Another California-based company, GeoOptics, also launched a small satellite for its commercial weather monitoring constellation, which monitors GPS navigation signals passed through the atmosphere to measure temperature and moisture profiles. The GeoOptics CICERO 10 spacecraft was the biggest hit Sunday, weighing in at around 22 pounds (10 kilograms).
A CubeSat named IRVINE01 built by Southern California high school students also lifted off the Electron rocket.
Fleet Space Technologies, an Australian company with plans to build a network of tiny tracking and data satellites on the Earth, also launched its first test CubeSats on Sunday 's mission – named Proxima 1 and 2.
A German-built payload from High Performance Space Structure Systems also rode into orbit Sunday to test an aerodynamic drag that could be used to de-orbit future satellites and help clear space junk out of orbit. The drag is still going to the Curie kick stage and unfurl after the separation of the other satellites.
In an interview with Spaceflight Now last month, Beck said the Rocket Lab has laid the groundwork for a faster-paced launch manifest, despite the delays in launching the Electron rocket this year.
"With the motor controller," Beck told Spaceflight Now. "What we've done, in fact, is done in a very high volume way of business."
Rocket Lab opened a new high-volume factory in Auckland last month. Coupled with a factory in Huntington Beach, California, Rocket Lab can produce, Beck said. The company also broke ground on its first U.S. launch pad at Wallops Island, Virginia, in October.
There are up to 16 Electron launches planned in 2019, Beck said, between the New Zealand launch site and the new pad in Virginia, which is scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2019.
"Our goal by the end of next year is to be launched every two weeks, and we are moving into 2020, launching once a week," Beck said. "We're tracking a pretty big pipeline of customers, and we've been very fortunate that they've had their trust in us."
Beck said Rocket Lab is generating "significant revenues" from customers, and the company's backlog is growing. But the company has its sights set on more launch sites, including a potential location in Scotland and possibly a second U.S. launch base. That could require more financing.
"It's a capital-intensive business, especially when you're building sites around the world," Beck said in an interview. "So there's some future fundraising that we can talk about."
Rocket Lab's investors to date include Khosla Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Lockheed Martin's DCVC (Data Collective), Promus Ventures and K1W1. The government of New Zealand also approved an innovation grant to Rocket Lab during Electron's development.
"It's one thing to one rocket on orbit, and it's another thing to back up the business infrastructure to really go forward," Beck said. "If I reflect on this year, I think it's a lot of work, we're going to have a lot of work, we're going to be able to do this."
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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.
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