{"id":12159,"date":"2020-10-21T17:56:54","date_gmt":"2020-10-21T09:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/ten-satellites-set-to-ride-into-orbit-with-rocket-lab\/"},"modified":"2020-10-21T17:56:54","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T09:56:54","slug":"ten-satellites-set-to-ride-into-orbit-with-rocket-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/ten-satellites-set-to-ride-into-orbit-with-rocket-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten satellites set to ride into orbit with Rocket Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Canon\u2019s CE-SAT-2B Earth-imaging satellite and 10 SuperDove remote sensing CubeSats from Planet are set for launch on Rocket Lab\u2019s Electron rocket. Credit: Rocket Lab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ten commercial Earth-imaging satellites are mounted on top of a Rocket Lab Electron launcher for liftoff Wednesday from New Zealand.<\/p>\n

The nearly 60-foot-tall (18-meter) Electron rocket is scheduled to take off from Rocket Lab\u2019s privately-operated spaceport on the North Island of New Zealand during a 49-minute window opening at 5:14 p.m. EDT (2114 GMT) Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The launch window opens at 10:14 a.m. Thursday local time in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

The smallsat launcher will aim to release the 10 satellites into a 310-mile-high (500-kilometer) sun-synchronous orbit at an inclination of 97.5 degrees, according to Rocket Lab. The mission will mark the 15th flight of an Electron rocket since 2017, and Rocket Lab\u2019s fifth mission so far this year.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab has nicknamed the mission \u201cIn Focus\u201d in honor of the 10 Earth observation satellites on-board the Electron launcher. The California-based company delayed the launch from Tuesday due to a poor weather forecast at the launch site on Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

The two-stage Electron rocket will arc downrange toward the south from Launch Complex 1 on Mahia Peninsula. Nine kerosene-fueled Rutherford engines will power the Electron first stage off the pad with around 50,400 pounds of thrust.<\/p>\n

After two-and-a-half minutes, the Electron first stage will shut down its engines and fall back into the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab doesn\u2019t plan any booster recovery experiments on Wednesday\u2019s mission. First stage recovery attempts are scheduled to resume later this year with Rocket Lab\u2019s 17th mission.<\/p>\n

A single vacuum-rated Rutherford second stage engine will ignite to drive the 10 satellites into a parking orbit nearly nine minutes after liftoff. The second stage will deploy Rocket Lab\u2019s kick stage, which will coast over Antarctica before igniting its Curie engine for more than two minutes to circularize its orbit.<\/p>\n

That will set up for separation of the 10 satellites from the kick stage around one hour after liftoff.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Rocket Lab\u2019s Electron rocket undergoes a fueling rehearsal before the launch of the \u201cIn Focus\u201d mission. Credit: Rocket Lab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The largest spacecraft on Wednesday\u2019s mission is CE-SAT-2B, an Earth observation satellite for Canon Electronics of Japan.<\/p>\n

The 78-pound (35.5-kilogram) microsatellite is sitting on top of the rocket. CE-SAT-2B is Canon\u2019s third microsatellite to launch, following an experimental spacecraft that launched in 2017 on an Indian PSLV rocket and a follow-on satellite that launched in July on a previous Rocket Lab mission.<\/p>\n

The CE-SAT 1B satellite that launched in July was destroyed when Rocket Lab\u2019s Electron rocket failed before reaching orbit.<\/p>\n

According to Canon, CE-SAT-2B carries three types of cameras to be demonstrated in orbit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the newly developed super high sensitivity camera, CE-SAT-2B is capable of observing the Earth during night time,\u201d Canon said in a press release. \u201cThe satellite is equipped with three types of cameras including Canon\u2019s mirrorless camera and compact digital camera.<\/p>\n

\u201cCE-SAT-2B will go through a two-year demonstration experiment for forthcoming production of cassegrain reflectors as series,\u201d Canon said.<\/p>\n

Spaceflight, a Seattle-based launch broker, arranged for the launch of CE-SAT-2B with Rocket Lab.<\/p>\n

Nine SuperDove Earth-imaging satellites \u2014 each about the size of a large shoebox \u2014 are stowed inside Maxwell deployers on top of the Electron rocket. The SuperDove payloads, built and owned by Planet, will replace five similar satellites \u2014 collectively known as \u201cFlock 4e\u201d\u2013 that were also lost on Rocket Lab\u2019s failed mission in July.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmerging from the unfortunate launch accident of Flock 4e on Electron in July, this next launch speaks to both Planet and Rocket Lab\u2019s resilience and agility to get back on the pad so quickly,\u201d Planet wrote in a blog post on its website. \u201cThese SuperDoves will be deployed into an approximate 500 km (310-mile-high) morning-crossing sun synchronous orbit (SSO), joining the rest of the flock already providing unprecedented medium-resolution global coverage and revisit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canon\u2019s CE-SAT-2B Earth-imaging satellite and 10 SuperDove remote sensing CubeSats from Planet are set for launch on Rocket Lab\u2019s Electron rocket. Credit: Rocket Lab Ten commercial Earth-imaging satellites are mounted on top of a Rocket Lab Electron launcher for liftoff Wednesday from New Zealand. The nearly 60-foot-tall (18-meter) Electron rocket is scheduled to take off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2021,2022,291,1608,1715,159,545,2023],"class_list":["post-12159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-canon","tag-ce-sat-2b","tag-commercial-space","tag-cubesats","tag-curie","tag-earth-observation","tag-electron","tag-in-focus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}