Tag: Rocket Lab

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Rocket Lab launches DARPA’s R3D2 satellite

Rocket Lab launch
Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle rises from its New Zealand launch pad. (Rocket Lab via YouTube)

Rocket Lab executed its first launch of the year from New Zealand today, sending an experimental satellite into orbit for the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The company’s Electron launch vehicle lifted off from Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula right on time, at 4:27 p.m. PT March 28 (12:27 p.m. local time March 29). Launch had been delayed for several days — first, due to concerns about a video transmission system, and then due to unacceptable weather conditions.

About 50 minutes after launch, the Electron’s kick stage successfully deployed DARPA’s Radio Frequency Risk Reduction Deployment Demonstration satellite, or R3D2, into a 264-mile-high orbit..

“Mission success! Great kick stage burn and final orbit. Perfect flight!” Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said in a tweet.

The 330-pound satellite is designed to unfurl a 7-foot-wide antenna to demonstrate how large structures can be packed within small satellite-size packages.

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Rocket Lab sends 13 satellites to orbit

Rocket Lab liftoff
Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket rises from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. (Rocket Lab via YouTube)

Rocket Lab has sent its first payloads for NASA into orbit from its New Zealand launch pad, atop a low-cost Electron rocket powered by 3-D-printed engines.

Liftoff from Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula came at 7:33 p.m. Dec. 16 New Zealand time (10:33 p.m. PT Dec. 15), after a two-day delay due to weather concerns.

Ten of the 13 small satellites packed aboard the rocket were funded through NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites program, or ELaNa. The other three came along for the ride, and are designed to test new imaging technologies and study how high-frequency radio signals travel through Earth’s ionosphere.

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Rocket Lab reports $140M in fresh funding

Rocket Lab factory
Electron rockets are made at Rocket Lab’s production facility in New Zealand. (Rocket Lab Photo)

Fresh on the heels of a successful satellite launch, Rocket Lab today announced that it has received $140 million in new investment.

Rocket Lab said the Series E financing round was led by Future Fund and closed last month, well in advance of last weekend’s “It’s Business Time” mission. The Electron rocket launch from the California-based startup’s pad on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula put six satellites in orbit and tested an experimental drag sail for small satellites.

The new round brings Rocket Lab’s total funding to $288 million and puts the company’s valuation well past a billion dollars, extending its status as a startup “unicorn.”

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Rocket Lab puts satellites in orbit from New Zealand

Rocket Lab Electron launch
Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket rises from its launch pad on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula. (Rocket Lab via YouTube)

Rocket Lab executed its second orbital mission today, sending six small satellites and an experimental drag sail into orbit from an oceanside launch pad in New Zealand.

Liftoff of the Electron rocket came at 4:50 p.m. New Zealand time on Nov. 11 (7:50 p.m. PT Nov. 10) at Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula.

This satellite launch mission was nicknamed “It’s Business Time,” in reference to its fully commercial nature as well as in tribute to one of the songs by Flight of the Conchords, a New Zealand parody-pop duo.

Rocket Lab’s business time had to be postponed twice over the past seven months, due to concerns about a motor controller for the first-stage Rutherford engines. But this time around, the countdown went off without a hitch, and the three-stage rocket rose into the southern sky to enter a pole-to-pole orbit.

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Rocket Lab picks Virginia for second launch site

Rocket Lab groundbreaking
Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck and other dignitaries pose with their shovels for a groundbreaking ceremony on Virginia’s Wallops Island. (Rocket Lab Photo via Twitter)

Rocket Lab officially unveiled its plan to build a commercial launch site at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Virginia’s Wallops Island, with liftoffs due to begin in a year.

The facility, which will be called Launch Complex 2, provides a U.S.-based alternative to Rocket Lab’s first launch pad on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula.

So far, Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle has flown just two test missions, including a successful rise to orbit in January. The third liftoff, nicknamed “It’s Business Time” in homage to the New Zealand comedy duo known as Flight of the Conchords, is set to launch from New Zealand next month and put six small satellites in orbit.

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Spaceflight partners with Rocket Lab for 3 launches

Rocket Lab Electron launch
Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket lifts off from its New Zealand launch pad in January. (Rocket Lab Photo via Spaceflight)

Seattle-based Spaceflight has partnered with Rocket Lab for three launches over the next year, including one of the first launches for BlackSky’s Earth observation constellation.

All three launches will send an assortment of small satellites into low Earth orbit from Rocket Lab’s facility on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand.

One of BlackSky’s Global satellites and several other rideshare payloads are due to go up on the first flight, set for the end of 2018.

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Last call for the Humanity Star satellite!

Humanity Star
Rocket Lab’s Humanity Star satellite is heading for a fall. (TheHumanityStar.com)

Humanity Star, we hardly knew ye.

When Rocket Lab revealed in January that it sent a disco-ball satellite called “the Humanity Star” into orbit, as one of the payloads aboard its low-cost Electron rocket, the company said it could stay up shining in the night sky for nine months or so.

But now Satview’s projection of the roughly 3-foot-wide, 20-pound satellite’s orbital decay indicates it will descend to a fiery doom on March 22.

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Find out where and when to see the Humanity Star

Humanity Star
Rocket Lab’s map provides a sampling of the viewing opportunities for the Humanity Star satellite. (Humanity Star Graphic)

It’s been a month and a half since Rocket Lab sent a sparkly satellite called Humanity Star into orbit, but we’re just now getting into prime time for seeing it from the western United States.

Humanity Star is a geodesic sphere made of carbon fiber and covered with 65 reflective panels, designed specifically to twinkle in dark skies as all those panels reflect sunlight before dawn and after dusk.

The 39-inch-wide (meter-wide) satellite was sent into a nearly pole-to-pole orbit from New Zealand aboard Rocket Lab’s low-cost Electron launch vehicle in January, along with three small Earth observation satellites.

Sighting conditions depend on where the satellite is during the optimal times for viewing. During the day, of course, the satellite’s reflections are lost in the sun’s glare. During the depths of night, the satellite isn’t at the right angle to reflect sunlight.

It took until early March for Humanity Star to get into the optimal orbital phase for West Coast sightings. Between now and March 27, there should be at least one sighting opportunity every day over Seattle. Another string of sightings is due to begin on May 7.

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‘Humanity Star’: Spot this shiny object in space

Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck shows off the Humanity Star satellite before launch. (Rocket Lab Photo)

In addition to launching three Earth-watching satellites, Rocket Lab has sent up a satellite you can watch from Earth: a bright and shiny object christened Humanity Star.

Rocket Lab says Humanity Star, a geodesic sphere made of carbon fiber with 65 reflective panels, could well rank as the brightest satellite in the night sky.

“No matter where you are in the world, or what is happening in your life, everyone will be able to see the Humanity Star in the night sky,” Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said today in a news release. “My hope is that all those looking up at it will look past it to the vast expanse of the universe and think a little differently about their lives, actions and what is important for humanity.”

The satellite was launched on Jan. 20 from Rocket Lab’s launch complex on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula, atop a low-cost Electron rocket.

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Rocket Lab sends Electron rocket into orbit

Rocket Lab launch
Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket rises from its New Zealand launch pad. (Rocket Lab via YouTube)

Rocket Lab’s two-stage Electron rocket successfully reached Earth orbit and deployed satellites for the first time today, raising hopes for far more ambitious missions to the moon.

Today’s mission, which went up from Rocket Lab’s launch complex on the tip of New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula, followed up on the company’s maiden launch last May — which sent an Electron into space but fell short of reaching orbit due to data transmission issues.

This mission was nicknamed “Still Testing,” but unlike the first mission, the objective was not merely to test Rocket Lab’s hardware. The rocket had the additional task of putting three nanosatellites in orbit: an Earth-imaging Dove satellite for Planet, and two Lemur-2 satellites that the Spire space venture would use for tracking ships and monitoring weather.

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