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The "It's Business Time" mission launched Sunday from New Zealand.
Rocket Lab
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It has been fully paid and has been Rocket Lab's first fully commercial mission.
Rocket Lab
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The company will try for one more commercial launch in 2018.
Rocket Lab
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It will then try for 16 missions in 2019.
Rocket Lab
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That would be a pretty remarkable launch for a relatively new company.
Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab succeeds this weekend in a company testing its rocket to one that has truly entered commercial operations. With the third flight of its electron booster, the company delivered seven different satellites to orbit as part of its first fully commercial spaceflight.
"The world is waking up to the new normal," the company's founder and chief executive, Peter Beck, said in a news release. "With the Electron launch vehicle, and fast access to space is now a reality for small satellites. We're thrilling to reach out to a small size by reaching orbit at second time and deploying more payloads. "
The launch occurred at 4:50 pm local time (03:50 UTC) on Sunday, from New Zealand's Māhia Peninsula. The rocket 's kick stage, named Curie, deployed six satellites for customers Spire Global, Tyvak Nano – Satellite Systems, Fleet Space Technologies, and the Irvine CubeSat Stem Program. The Curie third stage is also known as NABEO, which will attempt to passively de-orbit inactive small satellites and reduce space junk.
Rocket Lab has now flown the Electron booster, a small-satellite launcher, three times. The first test launched in May 2017 failed to reach orbit. However, in January 2018, a second mission did reach its intended orbit, carrying a couple of CubeSats and a payload inspired by Beck-Humanity's Star.
Ten months have passed since that flight. While the company is dealing with electron rocket, Beck told the company that it is one of the largest companies in the world. Rocket Lab has opened a second production facility in New Zealand (in Southern California) at Wallops Island, Virginia.
"It's a thing to have a couple of hot fires and a couple of suborbital launches and whatnot," he said in October. "For us, just going to orbit was a good milestone, but going to orbit is just the start." The amount of effort that we've invested in the last nine months, really, it's been just extraordinary. "
The Electron Vehicle has a payload capacity of 150kg to 225kg to a 500km Sun-synchronous orbit and costs about $ 6 million per year launch.
Listing image by Rocket Lab
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