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A transforming satellite rocket, a proof-of-concept design, has been successfully launched from New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula, says Rocket Lab.
Peter Beck, founder of RocketLab.
Photo: Supplied / Rocket Lab
The American company has been acting as something of a middleman, using its own rockets to launch paying customer satellites from its base at the northern tip of Hawke’s Bay.
He made one of these launches, the company’s fourteenth launch, at 3.05pm on Monday, and the news broke today that he was also planning to produce satellites and had, in fact, already succeeded in doing so.
The successful launch is the first since Rocket Lab lost a spacecraft in July during the second-stage burn, and the company’s Kiwi founder Peter Beck told RNZ Control the launch was kept secret to ensure that everything had gone well.
“It started out pretty much like any other launch, we deployed our client’s satellite into a nominal orbit, and about an hour after we did it, we sent a command to the rocket, or the last remaining bit of the orbiting rocket, and that command made the rocket will go from being basically space junk to a satellite.
“We wanted to make sure the spacecraft was going to operate nominally first and get to a point where we can check all of its systems and then once we’re happy with it, we decided it was time to tell the world.”
He said this early version of the “Photon” statellite was dubbed “first light,” a nod to the elemental particle of light that gives the ship its name, as well as to the east coast, which is the first to see the sunshine every morning.
The plan was to start offering a full package of satellites from start to finish.
“It takes dozens of people and many millions of dollars and sometimes many years to build a satellite that provides something like communications, weather, things like that … so we have created a platform that allows customers to come to us and just say ‘hey, we want to put the Internet in this country’, and we can go ‘well’ and do everything from start to finish, from launch to satellite, to satellite operation, providing the best service. “
First Light was a demonstration of that, he said.
“This particular satellite is a technology demonstrator … yes, we had a little camera on the side just to take good pictures, but really the purpose of the satellite is to show the usefulness and robustness of this particular machine, so it’s ready to receive any sensor or system that our clients require. “
The company was also working on building a reusable launch rocket, he said, a move that would provide some clear financial advantages.
“We are the fourth most frequently launched rocket in the world, and by reusing the first stage, it allows us to fly even further and produce more rockets and put more of our customers’ satellites into orbit.
“Except for one launch vehicle in the world, they are all expendable … all we have to do is take the rocket back once and we have doubled production.
“You can see that there are thousands of hours of work on each rocket.”
That model was scheduled for the company’s 17th launch, he said, building on some previous successes.
“We’ve successfully re-entered two rockets through the atmosphere to date and that’s a very complicated thing, to give a bit of context there … we went from eight and a half times the speed of sound to something like 50 km / h in the space of 70 seconds There is enough energy created when you re-enter that you can power an apple for half a day, so there is a huge amount of energy that you have to dissipate.
“So we’ve figured it out … but Flight 17 is the first that we’ll try to get back to the factory.
