{"id":13268,"date":"2019-03-29T18:05:35","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T10:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/rocket-lab-launches-darpa-research-satellite\/"},"modified":"2019-03-29T18:05:35","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T10:05:35","slug":"rocket-lab-launches-darpa-research-satellite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/rocket-lab-launches-darpa-research-satellite\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket Lab launches DARPA research satellite"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Rocket Lab\u2019s fifth Electron rocket launched at 7:27 p.m. EDT (2327 GMT) from the company\u2019s launch complex on Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. Credit: Rocket Lab\/Kieran Fanning & Sam Toms<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A Rocket Lab Electron rocket climbed into orbit from New Zealand Thursday (U.S. time) with an experimental payload for a U.S. military research and development agency to demonstrate the performance of a compact, deployable antenna that could expand the communications capabilities of future small satellites.<\/p>\n

The 55-foot-tall (17-meter) rocket, powered by nine kerosene-fueled 3D-printed Rutherford main engines, fired off its launch pad on New Zealand\u2019s North Island at 7:27 p.m. EDT (2327 GMT) after a four-day delay to allow time for crews to replace a video transmitter and wait for improved weather conditions.<\/p>\n

The Electron rocket headed east from Rocket Lab\u2019s commercial spaceport on Mahia Peninsula, where liftoff occurred at 12:27 p.m. local time Friday. The slender all-black launcher, sized for small satellite launches and made of lightweight carbon composite materials, soared through broken clouds and released its first stage to fall into the sea two-and-a-half minutes into the mission.<\/p>\n

A single Rutherford engine on the Electron\u2019s second stage ignited to accelerate into a preliminary parking orbit, then a Curie kick stage maneuvered into a nearly circular orbit with an average altitude of roughly 264 miles (425 kilometers) and an inclination of 39.5 degrees to the equator.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab\u2019s webcast of the launch ended after the conclusion of the Electron\u2019s second stage engine burn around 10 minutes after liftoff, but the company confirmed the final kick stage maneuver occurred as planned. Separation of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency\u2019s R3D2 satellite was timed for approximately 53 minutes after liftoff.<\/p>\n

Officials declared success after the R3D2 satellite\u2019s deployment from the Curie kick stage, extending Rocket Lab\u2019s streak of successful launches to four in a row after the inaugural Electron test flight fell short of orbit in 2017. DARPA says the Radio Frequency Risk Reduction Deployment Demonstration, or R3D2, satellite was developed in a little more than 18 months, an unusually quick pace for a space mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongratulations to our dedicated team for delivering another important and innovative asset to space \u2013 on time and on target,\u201d said Peter Beck, founder and CEO of Rocket Lab. \u201cThe unique requirements of this mission made Electron the perfect launch vehicle to lift R3D2 as a dedicated payload to a highly precise orbit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S.-New Zealand launch provider plans to ramp up to a pace of one launch per month later this year. Rocket Lab is building a second Electron launch pad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia, for missions beginning by the end of this year.<\/p>\n

The 330-pound (150-kilogram) R3D2 spacecraft will demonstrate a new type of membrane reflect array antenna that can be packed into a tight volume for launch on a small rocket, then unfurl once in space.<\/p>\n

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Artist\u2019s illustration of DARPA\u2019s R3D2 satellite. Credit: Northrop Grumman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

R3D2\u2019s antenna is made of a tissue-thin Kapton membrane, and will deploy to a diameter of nearly 7.4 feet (2.25 meters) in orbit, according to DARPA.<\/p>\n

During a demonstration mission slated to last at least six months, engineers will monitor the dynamics of the antenna\u2019s deployment, and evaluate its performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe antenna could enable multiple missions that currently require large satellites, to include high data rate communications to disadvantaged users on the ground,\u201d officials wrote in a mission summary posted on DARPA\u2019s website. \u201cA successful demonstration also will help prove out a smaller, faster-to-launch and lower cost capability, allowing the Department of Defense, as well as other users, to make the most of the new commercial market for small, inexpensive launch vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n

DARPA says the R3D2 satellite cost approximately $25 million, and the agency\u2019s commercial launch contract with Rocket Lab has a value of $6.5 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department of Defense has prioritized rapid acquisition of small satellite and launch capabilities. By relying on commercial acquisition practices, DARPA streamlined the R3D2 mission from conception through launch services acquisition,\u201d said Fred Kennedy, director of DARPA\u2019s Tactical Technology Office. \u201cThis mission could help validate emerging concepts for a resilient sensor and data transport layer in low Earth orbit \u2013 a capability that does not exist today, but one which could revolutionize global communications by laying the groundwork for a space-based internet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Northrop Grumman is prime contractor for the R3D2 mission and assembled the satellite. Blue Canyon Technologies of Boulder, Colorado, provided the spacecraft platform, and MMA Design in Louisville, Colorado, built the antenna. Trident Systems, headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, designed and built R3D2\u2019s software-defined radio, DARPA said.<\/p>\n

MMA Design\u2019s Pantograph Deployable High-Gain Reflectarray antenna can work in a wide range of radio frequencies \u2014 from UHF to Ka-band \u2014 supporting broadband, voice, video and data relay missions.<\/p>\n

The antenna is scheduled to unfurl to its full size around a week after launch to commence a series of tests for DARPA, including the downlink of encrypted data to U.S. government ground terminals, the agency said in response to questions from Spaceflight Now.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re doing on this mission primarily is demonstrating a new high compaction ratio deployable antenna,\u201d said Lindsay Millard, DARPA\u2019s R3D2 program manager. \u201cAn antenna has a lot of different uses for DoD. One example is communication. The antenna and the power you have on the satellite dictates what size of antenna you need on the ground to receive it, so the bigger the antenna you can have in space, the smaller the one can be on the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cFitting that very big antenna into a smaller satellite makes the satellite less expensive, and allows us to leverage different types of launch vehicles that maybe we wouldn\u2019t be able to use for bigger satellites,\u201d Millard said.<\/p>\n

The mission is set to last up to six months, but the spacecraft is designed for an 18-month lifetime.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has four different carbon fiber deployment mechanisms that will go out on each corner, then it has a pantograph, which is a shape that kind of looks like an accordion, around the outside that will expand,\u201d Millard said. \u201cThen we will begin to see how flat the antenna is, we\u2019ll do some assessments from the ground to see what it might be able to transmit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s really making the antenna work is the copper etchings on top of the Kapton,\u201d Millard said. \u201cKapton looks a lot like cellophane you might have in an Easter basket, and so it\u2019s a great place to hold the copper, which is what is reflecting the energy, and it\u2019s just set into the Kapton. So when electromagnetic radiation hits the antenna, it acts like a parabola and focuses that energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The R3D2 mission was Rocket Lab\u2019s first launch for the U.S. military, and the company\u2019s first launch of a microsatellite, after previous Electron flights carried clusters of much smaller CubeSats to space.<\/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 fifth Electron rocket launched at 7:27 p.m. EDT (2327 GMT) from the company\u2019s launch complex on Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. Credit: Rocket Lab\/Kieran Fanning & Sam Toms A Rocket Lab Electron rocket climbed into orbit from New Zealand Thursday (U.S. time) with an experimental payload for a U.S. military research and development […]<\/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":[2510,291,1715,1504,545,25,1593,1595],"class_list":["post-13268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-canyon-technologies","tag-commercial-space","tag-curie","tag-darpa","tag-electron","tag-launch","tag-launch-complex-1","tag-mahia-peninsula"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13268"}],"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=13268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}