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Rocket lab will launch an ambitious mission today (Nov 19), and you can watch the action live.
California-based company Electron reinforcement It is scheduled to take off on Thursday from the Rocket Lab launch site in New Zealand during a nearly three-hour window that opens at 8:44 p.m. EST (0144 GMT on November 20). You can see it live here on Space.com, courtesy of Rocket Lab, or directly through the company.
The two-stage Electron will bring 30 satellites into orbit for a wide range of customers, and the first stage of the booster will return to Earth for a check, Parachute-assisted ocean landing when its work is done in the upward direction.
Related: Rocket Lab and its electron amplifier (photos)
Rocket Lab staff will lift the thruster out of the sea and bring it back to shore for inspection.
“It will be the first time that Rocket Lab has attempted to recover a stage after launch and is an important milestone in Rocket Lab’s quest to make Electron a reusable rocket to support a higher launch rate for small satellites,” wrote company representatives. in a description of Thursday’s mission, which is called “Return to Sender”.
Thursday’s launch will not be the first test of technology that enables the reuse of Rocket Lab. The company has already guided the early stages without a parachute back in a controlled manner during operational missions and ripped a dummy first stage that falls out of the sky with a helicopter, the last planned booster recovery strategy, during a drop test.
The 57-foot-tall (17-meter) Electron provides small satellites dedicated to orbit. Making the currently disposable rocket first stage reusable would allow Rocket Lab to increase its launch frequency and likely also reduce costs significantly, said the company’s founder and CEO Peter Beck.
“Return to Sender” will be Electron’s 16th mission. The 30 satellites will be deployed in a circular orbit about 310 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth, if all goes according to plan.
Those payloads include two satellites for the TriSept company’s Drag Racer mission, which will test the effectiveness of long belts as a way to help deorbit the satellites; two maritime surveillance spacecraft for the French company Unseenlabs, which aims to help expose illegal fishing; 24 of Swarm Technologies’ SpaceBee satellites, which are designed to provide communication services to “Internet of Things” devices around the world; a satellite built by students from the University of Auckland in New Zealand that will test a possible connection between earthquakes and atmospheric disturbances; and a 3D-printed mass simulator in the shape of Gnome Chompski from the Half-Life video game series (which will not actually be implemented, but will instead return to Earth with the Electron’s “boot stage”).
Editor’s Note: This story was updated on November 18 with the mission’s new target launch date of November 19.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out there“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book on the search for extraterrestrial life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
