Rocket Lab launched its first flight of its Electron rocket since a failure on Sept. 19. The 42nd mission for the small-satellite launcher lifted off on Dec. 15 from New Zealand during at about 1705 NZDT (0405 UTC or 11:05 p.m. EST).
Launched today from the Mahia Peninsula (Hawke’s Bay). Lift off is around the 35 minute mark of the linked video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLwTLqaCnQ8&t=3)
This is great news, reusing rockets is a big part of how SpaceX are so incredibly competitive, so it’s good to hear there are multiple companies doing it now.
This wasn’t actually a reused rocket. In this instance “return-to-flight” refers to the fact that this was Rocket Lab’s first flight since they were grounded in September, due to a launch failure.
The anomaly in September was quite amazing, and they published an explanation here.
That said, it is great that RL is reusing some of their rockets, and very exciting to see them building a larger reusable vehicle in Neutron.
If I remember correctly, they haven’t reflown an entire booster yet, but they have reflown a Rutherford engine. I believe they are working towards booster reuse with Electron, though I haven’t heard much recently.
True, they’ve recovered at least one booster fully intact (since ditching the helicopter-hook idea), but no reflights yet. I guess they want to do some very thorough structural validation before attempting to refly.
Plus, their launch cadence hasn’t exactly been rapid over the last 2-3 years. Hopefully they can start picking up the pace and that’ll in turn accelerate the progress of their Electron reuse program.
That’s a really cool read, thanks for linking it!
