{"id":12699,"date":"2020-01-22T01:42:17","date_gmt":"2020-01-21T17:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nro-the-u-s-spy-satellite-agency-preps-for-first-dedicated-launch-on-foreign-soil\/"},"modified":"2020-01-22T01:42:17","modified_gmt":"2020-01-21T17:42:17","slug":"nro-the-u-s-spy-satellite-agency-preps-for-first-dedicated-launch-on-foreign-soil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nro-the-u-s-spy-satellite-agency-preps-for-first-dedicated-launch-on-foreign-soil\/","title":{"rendered":"NRO, the U.S. spy satellite agency, preps for first dedicated launch on foreign soil"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
The payload shroud for Rocket Lab\u2019s next mission \u2014 designed NROL-151 by the National Reconnaissance Office \u2014 is pictured inside a processing facility in New Zealand. Credit: Rocket Lab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rocket Lab\u2019s first mission for the National Reconnaissance Office, which owns the U.S. government\u2019s fleet of intelligence-gathering satellites, is scheduled to launch from New Zealand as soon as Jan. 30 (U.S. time), officials announced Monday.<\/p>\n

Designated NROL-151, the previously-unannounced mission will be the first dedicated launch for the NRO from a spaceport outside the United States.<\/p>\n

With rare exceptions, information about the NRO\u2019s payloads is typically classified. The spy satellite agency and Rocket Lab released no details about the payload set to fly into orbit on Rocket Lab\u2019s Electron rocket later this month.<\/p>\n

Most of the NRO\u2019s missions are large, requiring boosts from heavier rockets from United Launch Alliance or SpaceX. But the organization has expanded its use of small satellites in recent years, deploying CubeSats and arranging dedicated launches on smaller rockets, such as Northrop Grumman\u2019s Minotaur launch vehicle family.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab\u2019s Electron rocket provides a different launch service, offering a dedicated ride to orbit small satellites without requiring payload owners to hitch a ride on a larger rocket, which often requires operators to compromise on schedule or orbital parameters.<\/p>\n

The Electron is designed to carry up to 330 pounds (150 kilograms) of payload to a sun-synchronous polar orbit around 310 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth. Rocket Lab \u2014 which is headquartered in California, and has a factory and a primary launch site in New Zealand \u2014 says its base price to purchase the entire capacity of an Electron rocket mission is around $5.7 million.<\/p>\n

The NRO said the NROL-151 mission is the first launch it has procured through the agency\u2019s new Rapid Acquisition of Small Launch, or RASR, contracting mechanism. The NRO said the small launch program \u201cenables our exploration of new launch opportunities by providing a streamlined, commercial approach for launching smallsats.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder this approach, RASR helps us pursue the use of both large and small satellites to create an integrated architecture that provides global coverage to answer a wide range of intelligence questions,\u201d the NRO said.<\/p>\n

The first opportunity to the launch the NROL-151 mission opens at 7 p.m. EST on Jan. 30 (0000 GMT; 1 p.m. New Zealand time on Jan. 31). A four-hour window is available daily through Feb. 12 (U.S. time), according to Rocket Lab, which has nicknamed the upcoming flight \u201cBirds of a Feather.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Rocket Lab\u2019s Electron rocket fires off its launch pad on Mahia Peninsula. Credit: Kieran Fanning\/Rocket Lab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The NROL-151 mission will mark the 11th flight of a Rocket Lab Electron booster since its debut in May 2017. It will be Rocket Lab\u2019s first flight of 2020, and the fourth dedicated Rocket Lab mission for the U.S. government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are honored the NRO has selected Rocket Lab as the launch provider for this dedicated mission,\u201d said Lars Hoffman, Rocket Lab\u2019s senior vice president of global launch services. \u201cThe Electron launch vehicle is perfectly positioned to provide the kind of rapid and responsive access to space that puts the NRO in complete control over their own launch schedule and orbital requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the industry shifts toward the disaggregation of large, geostationary spacecraft, Electron enables unprecedented access to space to support a resilient layer of government small satellite infrastructure,\u201d Hoffman said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The NRO said it was looking forward to a new partnership with Rocket Lab and a continued collaboration with New Zealand on the NROL-151 mission. New Zealand is a partner in the \u201cFive Eyes\u201d intelligence-sharing alliance with the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab says it will attempt another guided re-entry of the Electron booster\u2019s first stage after it shuts down around two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff. While the Electron\u2019s second stage and Curie kick stage place the NROL-151 payload into orbit, the first stage will use thrusters to flip around 180 degrees and re-enter the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Engineers will analyze data gathered by sensors on the first stage to determine how the rocket weathers the extreme heat and pressures of re-entering the atmosphere. Rocket Lab debuted an upgraded first stage on the company\u2019s previous launch in December, including a guidance system and thrusters to control the pencil-shaped composite booster\u2019s orientation during re-entry, plus a base heat shield to protect the rocket during descent.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab will add parachutes to future rockets. The company eventually aims to retrieve the boosters using a helicopter as they descend under a parachute, enabling the company to recover and reuse the stage while avoiding contamination from salt water.<\/p>\n

Unlike SpaceX\u2019s larger Falcon 9 rocket boosters, Rocket Lab\u2019s Electron first stage does not have enough leftover propellant after its ascent burn to attempt a propulsive landing. That\u2019s simply a matter of physics, Rocket Lab says, because a small rocket inherently has thinner performance margins than a large launcher.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab is the first of a new crop of commercial small satellite launch companies to enter operational service. Other major players in the smallsat launcher market include Virgin Orbit and Firefly Aerospace, both of which claim they are within months of attempting an orbital launch.<\/p>\n

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Rocket Lab\u2019s launch site on Mahia Peninsula on the east coast of New Zealand\u2019s North Island. Rocket Lab is constructing a second launch pad at the spaceport \u2014 seen here behind the Electron rocket\u2019s Launch Complex-1 \u2014 to accommodate a faster flight cadence. Credit: Rocket Lab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rocket Lab built a privately-owned launch site for the Electron rocket on Mahia Peninsula, located on the eastern coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The Launch Complex 1 facility at Mahia is undergoing an expansion, with construction underway on a second launch pad there.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab announced the completion of its first launch site in the United States \u2014 named Launch Complex 2 \u2014 last month at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia.<\/p>\n

The first Electron launch from Virginia is scheduled this spring with a U.S. military satellite.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab says it built the new launch pad in Virginia primarily to accommodate U.S. government payloads.<\/p>\n

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

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

The payload shroud for Rocket Lab\u2019s next mission \u2014 designed NROL-151 by the National Reconnaissance Office \u2014 is pictured inside a processing facility in New Zealand. Credit: Rocket Lab Rocket Lab\u2019s first mission for the National Reconnaissance Office, which owns the U.S. government\u2019s fleet of intelligence-gathering satellites, is scheduled to launch from New Zealand as […]<\/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":[2368,291,1715,545,25,1593,2384,257],"class_list":["post-12699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-birds-of-a-feather","tag-commercial-space","tag-curie","tag-electron","tag-launch","tag-launch-complex-1","tag-mahia","tag-military-space"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12699"}],"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=12699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}