WASHINGTON – The first launch of a rocket lab’s electron rocket from a site in the United States will not take place until 2021, as NASA is required to use the rocket due to problems with the flight termination system.
Rocket Lab plans to make its first launch this year from its Launch Complex (LC) 2 at Virginia’s Opus Ops Island. The company completed the launch site in December 2019, in the second quarter of 2020, with the launch of a U.S. named STP-27RM. At the time of saying the military space test program mission, the first launch expected there.
Preparations for that launch were slowed by the epidemic, but Rocket Lab said it expects it to launch in the fall in the spring. The company held a dress rehearsal for the launch in the spring, which included static-fire testing of nine of the rocket’s nine first-stage engines.
One reason for the delay, Rocket Lab said, was that it was waiting for NASA to certify a Healthy Flight Termination System (AFTS) that would be used to provide safety on the range. NASA controls the launch at the Lopps flight facility, where LC-2 is located. “It’s a very long certification process that, quite frankly, we probably underestimated how long it will take,” Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab, said in an interview in August.
That certification process is ongoing. Speaking at the Maryland Space Business Roundtable webinar on November 10, David Pierce, director of NASA and Wall Street Journal, mentioned preparations for the first launch of the rocket lab as part of an overview of the facility’s activities. He said, “We are really proud of our work with Rocket Lab. “We’re working really hard to support Rocket Lab with the launch in ’21.”
Asked later about AFTS certification, Pierce said that despite the epidemic, engineers kept up with the development of the system over the summer. “We found some errors when they sent the unit for unit software review.” The review includes teams from NASA’s Catherine Johnson Independent Verification and Accreditation Facility, the Federal Aviation Administration, Wendenberg Air Force Base and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Engineers are now working to solve those problems, the number or severity of which he has not described in detail. “We expect that, given the current rates at which we are developing and correcting code errors, we should be prepared to certify that unit in the first half of ’21.”
The unit, he added, will also be available to other companies launching from Wall Laps. “We’re in this for a long distance,” he said. “We recognize it’s a game-changing technology, so we want to do it and it’s safe to do so as soon as we release it into the private industry.”
Rocket Lab spokesman Morgan Bailey confirmed on November 12 that the termination of AFTS is the final step before the company is ready to launch from Vops Lops. “The launch vehicle and pad are ready for launch,” he said. “The final step is the NASA certification of AFTS and the time to complete it is being run by NASA.”
The next milestone of Rocket Lab is the company’s first attempt to recover the first phase of electrons since launch. That mission, dubbed “Return to Sender,” is now scheduled to launch in New Zealand early November 18 from the company’s LC-1 launch site.
As part of its plan to re-use the electron in the first phase, the company initially plans to make recovery efforts only at the launch site in New Zealand. However, Beck said the company also envisions an improvement in the first phase from the launch of the LC-3.
That said, planning for all the development of early recovery recovery on LC-1 is just a very easy range. “But once we sort it all out, we have no reason not to bring it to LC-2 either.”
