Nevertheless, Beck said in a statement the accomplishments in Thursday’s test flight will advance Rocket Lab’s mission to reduce the cost of space launches, particularly for lightweight payloads that have trouble booking rides on existing launchers. There were no commercial satellites aboard the rocket, only an inert payload, according to a launch license issued by the Federal Aviation Administration, the regulatory authority which oversees Rocket Lab operations because the company is based in the United States. Rocket Lab released no further details on the mission, which carried instrumentation collecting 25,000 channels of telemetry for engineers to evaluate the launcher’s performance. A single modified Rutherford engine on the Electron’s second stage was programmed to ignite for nearly five minutes to drive the launcher into an orbit between 186 miles (300 kilometers) and 310 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth.īut something went awry with the rocket before passing the speed required to reach orbit. The first stage engines were scheduled to switch off at T+plus 2 minutes, 30 seconds, followed by first stage separation around four seconds later. The nine Rutherford first stage engines, each burning a combination of kerosene and liquid oxygen, cumulatively produced around 34,500 pounds of thrust at liftoff and powered up to 41,500 pounds of thrust as the rocket soared into the stratosphere. Thursday’s launch, christened “It’s a Test,” came after bad weather halted flight preps on three consecutive days. local time in New Zealand, and the Electron rocket quickly climbed into mostly cloudy skies, turning to the south over the Pacific Ocean. EDT) from Launch Complex 1, Rocket Lab’s operations base on Mahia Peninsula on the eastern coast of New Zealand’s North Island. After a quick health check, computers commanded hold-down restraints to release the booster at 0420 GMT (12:20 a.m. The 55-foot-tall (17-meter) Electron rocket, made of black carbon composite materials, fired its nine first stage Rutherford engines in the final seconds of Thursday’s countdown. We didn’t quite reach orbit, and we’ll be investigating why, however, reaching space in our first test puts us in an incredibly strong position to accelerate the commercial phase of our program, deliver our customers to orbit and make space open for business.” “We had a great first stage burn, stage separation, second stage ignition and fairing separation. “It was a great flight,” said Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s CEO. The U.S.-New Zealand company said data from the test flight will help refine the Electron launcher for future demonstrations before it enters commercial service hauling small satellites to orbit.

The debut launch of Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from a privately-operated base in New Zealand made it to space Thursday, proving the performance of major parts of the booster before faltering short of the velocity it needed to enter orbit, the company said in a statement.

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