{"id":12894,"date":"2019-10-15T22:50:18","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T14:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/rocket-lab-preps-for-commercial-satellite-launch-this-week\/"},"modified":"2019-10-15T22:50:18","modified_gmt":"2019-10-15T14:50:18","slug":"rocket-lab-preps-for-commercial-satellite-launch-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/rocket-lab-preps-for-commercial-satellite-launch-this-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket Lab preps for commercial satellite launch this week"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Rocket Lab\u2019s Electron rocket underwent a wet dress rehearsal Oct. 3 on its launch pad in New Zealand. Credit: Rocket Lab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rocket Lab\u2019s fifth flight of the year is set for liftoff as soon as Wednesday (U.S. time) carrying a small experimental satellite to orbit for Astro Digital, a Silicon Valley company aiming to demonstrate technologies in space after an earlier focus on Earth observation.<\/p>\n

The mission was delayed two days because of stormy weather at Rocket Lab\u2019s launch site, located on Mahia Peninsula on New Zealand\u2019s North Island.<\/p>\n

The three-hour launch window opens at 0000 GMT Thursday (8 p.m. EDT Wednesday), or 1 p.m. Thursday in New Zealand, according to Rocket Lab. It will be Rocket Lab\u2019s fifth launch of the year as the company seeks to ramp up to a monthly launch cadence, with a goal of launching every two weeks in 2020.<\/p>\n

The payload for this week\u2019s mission is a 16-unit CubeSat named Palisade owned and operated by Astro Digital, a company based in Santa Clara, California.<\/p>\n

The Palisade spacecraft \u2014 about the size of a small suitcase \u2014 will ride Rocket Lab\u2019s 55-foot-tall (17-meter) Electron booster into orbit.<\/p>\n

The two-stage Electron launcher will deploy a Curie kick stage around nine minutes after liftoff. After flying over Antarctica, the Curie kick stage will fire its main engine to inject the Palisade spacecraft into its targeted orbit, followed by satellite separation around 71 minutes into the mission.<\/p>\n

Airspace warning notices related to the launch suggest it will carry Palisade into a polar orbit, but the exact orbital parameters have not been released by Rocket Lab or Astro Digital. In a press kit for the launch, Rocket Lab said the Curie kick stage will \u201cdeploy the payload to more than twice the altitude reached by any Rocket Lab mission to date.\u201d<\/p>\n

The highest orbit achieved by Rocket Lab in its eight previous missions was around 335 miles (540 kilometers).<\/p>\n

The unusual orbit targeted by this week\u2019s mission illustrates the value of Rocket Lab\u2019s dedicated smallsat launch service, said Peter Beck, the company\u2019s CEO, in a recent interview with Spaceflight Now.<\/p>\n

Beck said Rocket Lab has not made any pricing adjustments in the aftermath of SpaceX\u2019s announcement in August of monthly rideshare launch opportunities for small satellites.<\/p>\n

Starting early next year, SpaceX said it will make capacity available for secondary payloads on monthly Falcon 9 launches carrying the company\u2019s Starlink broadband satellites into \u201cmid-inclination\u201d orbits.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, SpaceX plans to offer three dedicated launches to carry multiple smallsats into higher-inclination sun-synchronous orbit per year, beginning in 2020. Sun-synchronous orbit is a popular destination for Earth observation satellites.<\/p>\n

On the sun-synchronous orbit missions, SpaceX will charge customers $1 million to launch a 440-pound (200-kilogram) payload. The Falcon 9 can deliver nearly 80 times more mass to sun-synchronous orbit than Rocket Lab\u2019s Electron, according to data on NASA\u2019s launch vehicle performance website.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab\u2019s price for a dedicated Electron launch \u2014 carrying up to 330 pounds (150 kilograms) into sun-synchronous orbit \u2014 is around $5.7 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not really feeling any pricing or other pressure,\u201d Beck said.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab can still differentiate itself in the crowded launch market, especially for satellite operators seeking to launch into a specific type of orbit, according to Beck.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe customer that flies on Rocket Lab really cares about things like LTAN (longitude of the ascending node), time of launch, the inclination, and control over the schedule because they\u2019re trying to build constellations and trying to build businesses,\u201d Beck said in an interview with Spaceflight Now. \u201cRideshare is really good for just getting some stuff up and doing a demo.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if you\u2019re ridesharing frequently, it\u2019s great, but it still doesn\u2019t enable you to build a commercial platform unless you\u2019re going to the same place as everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Rocket Lab team members pose with the payload fairing set to fly on the company\u2019s next mission for Astro Digital. Credit: Rocket Lab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket has flown one dedicated rideshare mission to date. The SSO-A mission, arranged by launch broker Spaceflight, took off last December and lofted 64 small satellites into sun-synchronous orbit.<\/p>\n

The SSO-A mission was successful, but not without difficulty. Spaceflight officials have said it was a challenge to fill capacity on the mission, and the launch broker said it would focus on arranging rideshare launches on smaller rockets in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be be interesting to see how SpaceX gets on as well,\u201d Beck said. \u201cFalcon 9 is a big vehicle to fill up with little spacecraft \u2026 So unless SpaceX launches an empty rocket, it will be quite challenging to get a full flight at a reasonable timeframe. We\u2019ll see how it all pans out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a different kind of customer that comes to us,\u201d he said. \u201cFor many years, you have heard me say that we\u2019re not going to build a bigger rocket, and it\u2019s for this very reason. If you\u2019re in the rideshare game, it\u2019s impossible to compete with a platform like the Falcon 9.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe very deliberately developed Electron as a 100 to 200-kilogram (payload) class vehicle, where you can put one microsat on there, or a couple of microsats on there, or a few 12Us (CubeSats) and deliver a constellation to exactly where it needs to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beck compared the service offered by Rocket Lab and SpaceX\u2019s rideshare program to the difference in taking an Uber or taking a bus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith an Uber, you get exactly where you want to go on your timetable,\u201d he said. \u201cA bus maybe drops you near where you want to go. If you want an Uber, you want an Uber. You don\u2019t want a bus.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Electron rocket set for launch this week, known as \u201cFlight 9,\u201d was originally assigned to ferry a different payload into orbit, Beck said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had an original customer for Flight 9 that needed some more time to work on their spacecraft, so we moved the manifest around and moved the next customer into that position,\u201d Beck said.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab did not identify the satellite that was replaced by Astro Digital\u2019s Palisade spacecraft.<\/p>\n

The Palisade spacecraft is launching on a technology demonstration mission. It carries an on-board propulsion system, an Astro Digital-developed communications system, and software developed by Advanced Solutions Inc., a Colorado company.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur team built this satellite in five months, including the complex RF (communications) payload, something we are very proud of,\u201d said Chris Biddy, co-founder and CEO of Astro Digital.<\/p>\n

Astro Digital has launched four small \u201cLandmapper\u201d CubeSats for a planned fleet of Earth observation satellites. The company has \u201cevolved\u201d its strategy to support a broader range of satellite missions, Biddy told Spaceflight Now.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to prove our core satellite platform technology with our first Landmapper satellites and have now expanded and evolved into supporting a diverse range of missions leveraging our experience,\u201d Biddy said. \u201cWe started as an Earth observation company. Now we are an end-to-end mission provider supporting broad LEO-based missions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab has named this week\u2019s mission \u201cAs The Crow Flies\u201d as a nod to Astro Digital\u2019s Corvus satellite platform, upon which the Palisade mission is built. Corvus is a genus of birds that includes crows.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab aims to close out 2019 with more launches carrying commercial satellites into orbit from the company\u2019s New Zealand launch pad, while construction crews finish a new Electron launch facility in Virginia for a first launch there early next year, Beck said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no way any of these missions could be rideshare,\u201d he said. \u201cThe orbits are too unique. The requirements for the spacecraft are too unique. It\u2019s really what we\u2019ve developed the Electron vehicle to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

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

Rocket Lab\u2019s Electron rocket underwent a wet dress rehearsal Oct. 3 on its launch pad in New Zealand. Credit: Rocket Lab Rocket Lab\u2019s fifth flight of the year is set for liftoff as soon as Wednesday (U.S. time) carrying a small experimental satellite to orbit for Astro Digital, a Silicon Valley company aiming to demonstrate […]<\/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":[2480,291,2481,1608,1715,545,25,1593],"class_list":["post-12894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-astro-digital","tag-commercial-space","tag-corvus","tag-cubesats","tag-curie","tag-electron","tag-launch","tag-launch-complex-1"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12894"}],"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=12894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}