{"id":51079,"date":"2024-06-20T23:46:55","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T15:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/rocket-lab-hits-50-electron-launches-with-kineis-mission\/"},"modified":"2024-06-20T23:46:55","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T15:46:55","slug":"rocket-lab-hits-50-electron-launches-with-kineis-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/rocket-lab-hits-50-electron-launches-with-kineis-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket Lab Hits 50 Electron Launches With Kin\u00e9is Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab<\/b> reached the milestone of 50 Electron launches on Thursday with a mission for French IoT startup Kin\u00e9is<\/strong>. The launcher reached 50 Electron launches seven years after the first flight, which Rocket Lab notes is faster than any other commercially developed rocket in history, even the Falcon 9.  <\/p>\n

The mission, named \u2018No Time Toulouse\u2019 for the city where Kin\u00e9is is based, lifted off at 2:16 p.m. EDT on Thursday, 6:16 a.m. local time in New Zealand on Friday morning. Electron deployed the first five satellites of the Kin\u00e9is IoT constellation. Another launch is set for this summer to deploy five more. <\/p>\n

The Kin\u00e9is nanosatellites are built on a 16U platform and are equipped with an IoT and automatic maritime identification system (AIS) payload. Kin\u00e9is plans to serve industries and use cases like agriculture, monitoring fixed infrastructures and energy networks, monitoring transport and logistics, and tracking wildlife and livestock and defense.<\/p>\n

Electron debuted in May 2017 in a test flight that achieved first stage separation and fairing separation, but failed due to a software issue. The second launch attempt in 2018 was successful. <\/p>\n

After the first test flight, Rocket Lab has had 45 successful launches and three failures that affected customers \u2014 one in 2020, 2021, and another in 2023. Overall, Rocket Lab has deployed 190 satellites. <\/p>\n

The company has ramped up its lauch cadence year-by-year and hit a record of 10 annual launches in 2023. Thursday\u2019s launch was its seventh of this year. <\/p>\n

CEO and founder Peter Beck commented on the significance of being the first rocket to reach 50 missions during the launch broadcast, and the importance of customer trust.   <\/p>\n

\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be forgotten that we weren\u2019t the preordained winner of the small launch vehicle race. I can remember raising capital in Silicon Valley and the first question that I would always get is, \u2018Why do you think you can beat Virgin Orbit and Richard Branson?\u201d Beck said. \u201cFor me it was always really obvious that the product that we were building was the right fit. The team were working their butts off. We had the right engineering and the right product for the market at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can produce as many rockets as you want, but if you don\u2019t have the customers, then it doesn\u2019t work either. There\u2019s a huge sense of gratitude from us for all of our customers \u2014 but especially the early ones who are really the pioneers in small launch along with us,\u201d he added. \u201cBeing the first to 50 really matters because we\u2019re all competitive in this industry. It\u2019s an important driver for the people and for the company. Everybody is pushing and continues to push to build vehicles and get customers in orbit faster and faster.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"illustrates
Rocket Lab graphic illustrates launch vehicle paths to 50 missions. Screenshot via Rocket Lab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Beck said Rocket Lab has done some of the \u201ccraziest things you can think of with Electron,\u201d referencing the Capstone mission to the Moon, HASTE suborbital mission, and rendezvous mission. <\/p>\n

The company has also worked to make Electron reusable and launched a previously flown Rutherford engine last year.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Rocket Lab signed its largest launch contract to date \u2014 a 10-launch deal with Japanese radar company Synspective.<\/p>\n

The company is now working on its next rocket, medium-lift Neutron rocket, which will debut in mid-2025 at the earliest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rocket Lab reached the milestone of 50 Electron launches on Thursday with a mission for French IoT startup Kin\u00e9is. The launcher reached 50 Electron launches seven years after the first flight, which Rocket Lab notes is faster than any other commercially developed rocket in history, even the Falcon 9.   The mission, named \u2018No Time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51081,"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":[],"class_list":["post-51079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51079"}],"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=51079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}