Categories
GeekWire

Rocket Lab’s Virginia pad opens for business

Rocket Lab opening
With Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck at center, dignitaries gather at Launch Complex 2 at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Virginia’s Wallops Island. (NASA Wallops Photo)

Rocket Lab today celebrated the opening of a launch complex on the Virginia coast, half a world away from its first launch pad in New Zealand.

The California-based company’s New Zealand-born CEO, Peter Beck, announced that the first liftoff from Launch Complex 2 at Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island would put an experimental satellite into orbit for the U.S. Air Force early next year. The Air Force’s Monolith nanosatellite will test a miniaturized system that’s designed to keep track of space weather.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

By Alan Boyle

Mastermind of Cosmic Log, contributor to GeekWire and Universe Today, author of "The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference," past president of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.

Leave a Reply

Discover more from Cosmic Log

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading