Tag: CubeSats
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Rocket Lab’s first commercial launch grounded to fix nagging technical issue
Credit: Rocket Lab Rocket Lab will bypass its current launch window to resolve a recurring problem with a motor controller on the company’s light-class Electron rocket, officials said Thursday, likely postponing its first commercial satellite launch at least a few weeks. The indefinite delay is the second time the U.S.-New Zealand launch company, which is…
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Rocket Lab’s first commercial launch scrubbed again
Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket on its launch pad in New Zealand. Credit: Rocket Lab The liftoff of a Rocket Lab Electron booster from New Zealand with five U.S.- and German-built nanosatellites was grounded Tuesday, U.S. time, after engineers identified a problem with a motor controller on the two-stage launcher. Rocket Lab officials did not immediately…
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Ground antenna problem scrubs Rocket Lab’s first commercial launch
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated at 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT) on June 24 and 12 a.m. EDT (0400 GMT) on June 25. A view of the Electron rocket on its launch pad in New Zealand shortly after Rocket Lab scrubbed the launch attempt. Credit: Rocket Lab Problems with a downrange tracking station kept Rocket Lab’s Electron…
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CubeSats set to ride on Rocket Lab’s first commercial launch
Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket is set for liftoff from New Zealand on Friday. Credit: Rocket Lab Five small satellites, including one built by high school students in Southern California, are awaiting launch Friday from New Zealand aboard the first commercial flight of Rocket Lab’s Electron booster. The U.S.-New Zealand launch company plans liftoff of the…
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Live coverage: Rocket Lab launch attempt scrubbed
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from Launch Complex 1 on Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter. Rocket Lab’s live video webcast begins around 20 minutes prior to launch, and will be available on this page.
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Tethers Unlimited delivers tiny but powerful satellite transmitter for Army
The SWIFT-KTX transmitter helps tiny satellites deliver big data. (Tethers Unlimited Photo) Bothell, Wash.-based Tethers Unlimited says it’s delivered the first flight unit of a K-band radio transmitter that’s designed for use on CubeSat satellites as small as a loaf of bread. The SWIFT-KTX transmitter builds upon Tethers Unlimited’s software-defined radio platform to transmit data…
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Earth-observers delivered to space by Long March 2D rocket
Video credit: CGTN A Chinese environmental research craft and an experimental Earth-imaging nanosatellite successfully launched Saturday aboard a Long March 2D rocket. The two satellite co-passengers lifted off at 0413 GMT (12:13 a.m. EDT) from the Jiuquan space base in northwestern China’s Inner Mongolia region, riding a two-stage Long March 2D launcher away from the…
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Rocket Lab updates launch window for first commercial mission
File photo of an Electron rocket. Credit: Rocket Lab After a two-month delay to resolve a technical concern, Rocket Lab plans to launch its first commercial mission as soon as June 22, U.S. time, from the company’s rocket base in New Zealand, the company announced Friday. Rocket Lab has four-hour launch windows available during a…
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First interplanetary CubeSats already setting records in deep space
Artist’s concept of the MarCO CubeSats. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Two CubeSats developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory launched May 5 with the InSight mission to Mars have deployed their miniaturized antennas and captured a distant family portrait of the Earth and the moon. The twin spacecraft have already set a distance record for CubeSats, and they…
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Smallest interplanetary probe snaps a picture of our Pale Blue Dot (and the moon)
The nanosatellite known as MarCO-B or WALL-E took this picture of Earth and the moon from a distance of more than 620,000 miles. (NASA / JPL-Caltech Photo) You don’t have to fly beyond the orbit of Neptune to see our home planet as a Pale Blue Dot. One of the first nanosatellites to travel beyond…