{"id":13885,"date":"2018-04-06T22:21:46","date_gmt":"2018-04-06T14:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/rocket-lab-preps-for-first-commercial-satellite-launch\/"},"modified":"2018-04-06T22:21:46","modified_gmt":"2018-04-06T14:21:46","slug":"rocket-lab-preps-for-first-commercial-satellite-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/rocket-lab-preps-for-first-commercial-satellite-launch\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket Lab preps for first commercial satellite launch"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
File photo of a test-firing of Rocket Lab\u2019s Rutherford engine. Credit: Rocket Lab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rocket Lab\u2019s first full-up commercial launch is set for April 19, U.S. time, from the company\u2019s privately-operated launch base in New Zealand with three U.S.-owned satellites to collect weather data.<\/p>\n

The next Electron launch will loft two satellites owned by Spire Global and one for GeoOptics. Both companies are based in California, and are competitors in the market to gather weather and climate information with commercial spacecraft.<\/p>\n

The upcoming third flight of the company\u2019s commercially-developed Electron rocket will come after two test flights in May 2017 and in January. The maiden Electron launch fell short of orbit due to a ground tracking error that led safety officials to prematurely abort the flight, but the second mission in January successfully reached orbit.<\/p>\n

As a bonus on the January test flight, the Electron deployed four satellites in orbit \u2014 two commercial CubeSats for Spire\u2019s weather data and ship tracking fleet, a CubeSat for Planet\u2019s Earth-imaging constellation and a Rocket Lab-owned reflective geodesic sphere named Humanity Star.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab nicknamed the first two Electron flights \u201cIt\u2019s a Test\u201d and \u201cStill Testing.\u201d Signifying Rocket Lab\u2019s orientation toward commercial operations, the next mission has been christened \u201cIt\u2019s Business Time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 14-day launch period opens April 19 at 8:30 p.m. EDT (0030 GMT; 12:30 p.m. New Zealand time on April 20). There is a four-hour launch window available each day.<\/p>\n

The Electron rocket will take off from Rocket Lab\u2019s space base on Mahia Peninsula, located on the east coast of New Zealand\u2019s North Island.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018It\u2019s Business Time\u2019 represents the shift to responsive space,\u201d said Peter Beck, Rocket Lab\u2019s founder and CEO. \u201cWe always set out to create a vehicle and launch site that could offer the world\u2019s most frequent launch capability and we\u2019re achieving that in record time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRocket Lab is the only small launch provider that has reached orbit and delivered on promises to open access to space for small satellites,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cWe can have payloads on orbit every 72 hours and our rapidly expanding manifest shows this is frequency is critical for the small satellite market.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two-stage Electron rocket stands around 55 feet (17 meters) tall with a diameter around 3.9 feet (1.2 meters). It\u2019s all black carbon composite structure contains kerosene and liquid oxygen tanks that power 10 Rutherford engines \u2014 nine on the first stage and one on the second stage \u2014 developed in-house by Rocket Lab.<\/p>\n

For comparison, SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket stands nearly 230 feet (70 meters) tall. The space shuttle\u2019s orange external fuel tank measured nearly 28 feet (8.4 meters) in diameter.<\/p>\n

But Rocket Lab says the Electron is perfectly sized to haul small satellites into orbit on dedicated, relatively low-cost missions. Officials say that will answer needs of commercial satellite operators, universities and governments trying to deploy payloads on shoestring budgets.<\/p>\n

The Electron booster can carry up to 330 pounds (150 kilograms) to a polar orbit around 310 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth. The rocket\u2019s capacity to a lower-altitude orbit is up to 500 pounds (225 kilograms), according to Rocket Lab.<\/p>\n

The rocket company, founded in New Zealand and headquartered in Southern California, says it can launch an Electron rocket for less than $5 million per flight.<\/p>\n

Spire\u2019s two Lemur 2 CubeSats, each weighing around 10 pounds (less than 5 kilograms), launching on the next Electron rocket will track ships and collect environmental data. The GeoOptics CICERO satellite on the third Electron launch is built on an expanded CubeSat design.<\/p>\n

The Spire and GeoOptics payloads will measure GPS satellite navigation signals passed through Earth\u2019s atmosphere to derive information about weather and climate.<\/p>\n

A Rocket Lab spokesperson said a Curie kick stage will fly with the Spire and GeoOptics payloads. The extra propulsion module, which made its successful debut during the January test flight, will place the CubeSats at their intended altitude a few hundred miles above Earth, after the Electron rocket puts them in an initial parking orbit.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The mission patch for Rocket Lab\u2019s third Electron launch. Credit: Rocket Lab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rocket Lab\u2019s fourth Electron launch is expected to carry at least 10 CubeSats to orbit for NASA and U.S. research institutions. That flight could take off from New Zealand in the next couple of months.<\/p>\n

In a Reddit \u201cAsk Me Anything\u201d event earlier this week, Beck said he expects Rocket Lab to begin generating positive cash flow by the Electron rocket\u2019s fifth flight, now that the launcher has finished its development phase.<\/p>\n

Beck wrote that Rocket Lab aims to launch once per month by the end of this year, then once every two weeks in 2019. Rocket Lab\u2019s Launch Complex 1 facility on Mahia Peninsula can eventually host launches as often as once every 72 hours, he said.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s focus now is on accelerating the Electron rocket\u2019s flight rate.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal from the outset was always to produce one vehicle very well that could be produced on a mass scale,\u201d Beck wrote. \u201cIt\u2019s the only way to achieve the launch frequency the market needs. We\u2019re pumping out around one Electron a month at the moment. There will always be continual innovation in all areas of Rocket Lab.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are no plans to make the Electron reusable or develop a bigger launcher.<\/p>\n

\u201cReusability doesn\u2019t scale well for small rockets,\u201d Beck wrote. \u201cNo plans for an Electron Heavy. With Electron\u2019s lift capability, we could have launched the vast majority of spacecraft launched last year. If we doubled the potential payload mass, we could have only launched an additional 2 percent of the market. Doesn\u2019t stack up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab plans to webcast the upcoming mission live online, but Beck said the company \u2014 which is based in the United States and falls under U.S. government regulations \u2014 is evaluating NOAA\u2019s new requirement for commercial rocket companies to obtain a license to broadcast live views from cameras on the launcher.<\/p>\n

SpaceX said NOAA restrictions kept it from providing live on-board video during a commercial Falcon 9 launch March 30. NOAA has regulatory authority over commercial Earth-imaging from space, and is tasked with ensuring satellite-based cameras do not record sensitive activities like military deployments.<\/p>\n

But live \u201crocketcam\u201d views provided by launch companies like SpaceX, United Launch Alliance and Rocket Lab are low-resolution, and generally have engines or other rocket components in the foreground.<\/p>\n

NOAA did not require licenses before numerous previous launches that beamed live video from space, but the agency recently ruled that rocket-mounted cameras constitute \u201cremote sensing systems,\u201d and should be subject to the law, which explicitly exempts hand-held cameras like those used by astronauts.<\/p>\n

Government missions are not subject to the NOAA rule.<\/p>\n

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

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

File photo of a test-firing of Rocket Lab\u2019s Rutherford engine. Credit: Rocket Lab Rocket Lab\u2019s first full-up commercial launch is set for April 19, U.S. time, from the company\u2019s privately-operated launch base in New Zealand with three U.S.-owned satellites to collect weather data. The next Electron launch will loft two satellites owned by Spire Global […]<\/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":[2101,291,1608,159,2834,2985,25,1593],"class_list":["post-13885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-cicero","tag-commercial-space","tag-cubesats","tag-earth-observation","tag-geooptics","tag-its-business-time","tag-launch","tag-launch-complex-1"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13885"}],"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=13885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13885\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}