Rocket Lab is ready to take a big step towards rocket reusability.
The California-based company plans to repair and inspect the first stage of its two-stage Electron booster during a mission later this year, Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said earlier this month.
Rocket Lab has the 17th launch of Electron for this milestone arm market, which is not too far away. The most recent Electron launch, called “Pics Or It Didn’t Happen”, was the booster’s 13th mission.
Related: Rocket Lab and its Electron booster (photos)
“Pics Or It Didn’t Happen”, which airs on July 4, failed after the Electron suffered an anomaly of electrical connections. Rocket Lab has completed its investigation into the failure and is on target resume Electron launches later this month, company representatives said on July 31.
Rocket Lab aims to greatly increase the access of small satellites to space with the 57-foot (17-meter) Electron, which had notched 11 straight successful flights for “Pics Or It Didn’t Happen.” Making the first stage of the Electron reusable would significantly help that vision, allowing the company to start more often, Beck said.
The electron is too small to accommodate powered motors, such as those routinely created by returning SpaceX Falcon 9 first stages, to be a possible option, Beck said; the booster can not carry enough fuel to have the required amount left over for the touchdown process. So, Rocket Lab will lead Electron back the first stages underground under parachutes, and then pluck the falling hardware from the air with a helicopter.
Accompanied restocking still requires some residual fuel, which in turn requires extra engine power. But Rocket Lab gave the Electron just the required impetus, through advances in the batteries that supply electric pumps in the Rutherford engines of the rocket. This enhancement increases Electron’s charge capacity to 500 lbs. (225 kilograms) up to 660 lbs. (300 kg), which makes not only rocket recovery possible, but also Electron missions to Venus and other remote destinations, Beck said on Aug. 5. during a business update and a Q&A session that was livestreamed on YouTube.
Spot the stranger out. S1 recovery booster. pic.twitter.com/Dl3fAGZBdeAugust 6, 2020
The company has made a lot of progress on its overall recovery plan. For example, Rocket Lab successfully led Electron’s first stages back to Earth on missions 10 and 11, in December 2019 and January of this year. The company also demonstrated the helicopter snagging strategy during a drop test this past March.
Flight 17 will not include picks; the booster will descend for guidance again through the Earth’s atmosphere and deploy its parachutes, but it will allow for splitting, Beck said during it 5 August.
“We’ll fish it out of the ocean, bring it back, put it in the factory and then we’ll really see what we have. That will determine how much work we have for ourselves,” Beck said, referring to the process of redevelopment and reflight. “Until now, telemetry would say we have a pretty healthy stage, but that’s where the rubber meets the road.”
Mike Wall is the author of “Out There” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
