US spaceflight startup Rocket Lab has scheduled new dates for its first commercial rocket launch — a mission dubbed “It’s Business Time.” The company plans to launch its small rocket, the Electron, sometime between June 23rd and July 6th. The rocket will take off from Rocket Lab’s New Zealand launchpad and carry five small satellites to orbit for customers, kicking off a busy year of commercial operations for the launch provider. Rocket Lab originally hoped to do this mission back in April, but the company had to postpone after it noticed some strange behavior with the rocket. After propping up the Electron on the launchpad and filling it with fuel, the engineering team found that a critical motor responsible for controlling the pumps inside the engines was acting funny. So Rocket Lab decided to stand down to figure out what was causing the issue. “It’s been a really tough one to determine the root cause,” Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck tells … [Read more...] about US space startup Rocket Lab sets new date for first commercial launch
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Rocket Lab just got a leg up on the race to launch tiny satellites
A satellite startup just signed a first of its kind deal that it hopes will bring it more business in the red-hot small satellite market. York Space Systems announced Tuesday that it signed a contract with Rocket Lab, a California and New Zealand-based startup that aced its first-ever orbital launch in January. The companies plan to streamline and reduce the cost of getting a small satellite to space. York and Rocket Lab want to upend the current system, which takes months for satellites to undergo what's called "mission integration" — tests and retrofitting to ensure a satellite can fly safely aboard a rocket. Their partnership will eliminate that process by doing all the integration work up front, making it easier and cheaper for a company to purchase a York satellite and get it to space on a Rocket Lab vehicle. "The space industry has always been really fragmented," Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck told CNNMoney. "So, in order to really reduce the time frame from idea to … [Read more...] about Rocket Lab just got a leg up on the race to launch tiny satellites
Rocket Lab is about to win the small satellite launch space race
Life is pretty good for Rocket Lab and its founder Peter Beck right now. With two test flights of its Electron rocket completed in the last 10.5 months, the company says it will move into commercial operations later this month. The 14-day launch window for the "It's Business Time" mission, carrying two private payloads, opens on April 20. In an interview, Beck said Rocket Lab hopes to fly eight missions in 2018 and reach a monthly launch cadence by the end of the year. The company's initial test flight in May 2017 failed to reach orbit, but a second flight in January of this year was almost entirely successful. Rocket Lab will become the first of a number of small-satellite launch companies to begin serving customers. As a result of that January test flight, Beck said customers have responded. "Over the years, companies in this market have come and gone, and at some point in time, customers said, 'show me when it works,'" Beck said. "Now we have proof that it works. Since … [Read more...] about Rocket Lab is about to win the small satellite launch space race
Rocket Lab will try to launch its first commercial mission this month
This mission is called "It's Business Time," a cheeky change from the previous launches, "It's a Test" and "Still Testing." It will include payloads from Spire Global, which has a constellation of Earth-observing satellites in low orbit, and GeoOptics, Inc., an environmental data company. Technically, the company's second launch had commercial payloads, but it was still a test flight.Rocket Lab has had two successful tests of its Electron rocket; the last one was just three months ago. "We always set out to create a vehicle and launch site that could offer the world's most frequent launch capability and we're achieving that in record time," the company's CEO, Peter Beck, said. The company has been aggressively 3D printing the parts for the Rutherford engines, and it hopes to be on a schedule of one launch per month by the end of the year. … [Read more...] about Rocket Lab will try to launch its first commercial mission this month
Rocket Lab sets date for first commercial launch of its Electron rocket
US spaceflight startup Rocket Lab is officially open for business and has scheduled its very first commercial launch for later this month. The company will launch its small Electron rocket with payloads from two paying satellite operators on board — just three months after completing a second test flight of the vehicle. The upcoming mission will initiate the beginning of customer operations for Rocket Lab, which claims to have a busy manifest for this year and next. After four years of developing the Electron, Rocket Lab flew the vehicle for the first time in May 2017 out of the company’s own private launch site in New Zealand. That test flight — appropriately dubbed “It’s a Test” — made it to space, though the rocket didn’t achieve orbit, due to a glitch in communication equipment on the ground. Rocket Lab was able to fix the problem, though, and performed a second test flight of the Electron in January in a mission called “Still … [Read more...] about Rocket Lab sets date for first commercial launch of its Electron rocket