21
Rocket Lab successfully completes return-to-flight Electron launch
(spaceflightnow.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
21 points (100.0% liked)
Aotearoa / New Zealand
1631 readers
12 users here now
Kia ora and welcome to !newzealand, a place to share and discuss anything about Aotearoa in general
- For politics , please use !politics@lemmy.nz
- Shitposts, circlejerks, memes, and non-NZ topics belong in !offtopic@lemmy.nz
- If you need help using Lemmy.nz, go to !support@lemmy.nz
- NZ regional and special interest communities
Rules:
FAQ ~ NZ Community List ~ Join Matrix chatroom
Banner image by Bernard Spragg
Got an idea for next month's banner?
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
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!