US-based aerospace producer Rocket Lab completed its first successful commercial launch on Saturday and sent seven spacecraft into orbit in a relatively small electron rocket designed primarily for Smallsats and cubesats, including ats small tiny satellites and a drag-sailor isi, and sent seven spacecraft.
According to the report, the two-stage, $ 5.7 million Electron rocket began with the nine gas-powered main engines of Rocket Lab's complex in New Zealand:
The two-stage rocket, more than 55 meters (17 meters) standing, pulled Rutherford's main engines on nine o'clock on Saturday at 1050 (Sunday) at 5:50 pm with nine kerosene, and Rocket Lab's special 1. The spaceship located on the Mahia Peninsula on the east coast of North Island of New Zealand.
Electron headed south from the Mahia Peninsula with a thrust of about 50,000 pounds from the Rutherford engines during the first two-and-a-half-hour firing.
After the reinforcer of the rocket was removed from the second stage and dropped to the aperture, the only Rutherford engine in the second stage (mostly 3D printed design with an electric pump) traced the rest of the load. A final stage has delivered loads to orbit, and SpaceFlight is now reported:
The Curie batting scene of the Rocket Lab, from the second stage of the electron, is about 120 minutes (200 kilometers) and an elliptical park with a high point over 120 miles (500 km) in orbit and about 85 degrees after about nine minutes from a slope.
The Curie hit scene rose towards Antarctica, then lit a ya green # non-toxic liquid monopropellant before flying from the north through the Atlantic Ocean to fire its main engine. The burnout, which lasted for about two minutes, aimed to circularize the trajectory of the kick stage at an altitude of approximately 310 miles before the six satellite passengers were released.
As CNBC noted, the Electron rocket was designed to carry the spacecraft up to the size of a refrigerator on a faster timeline than its larger competitors, such as SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets. On Saturday, Spire, Tyvak, Filo and Irvine carried the satellites for the CubeSat STEM program, as well as the drag-sail protector, a prototype of technology to clear some of the orbits around the earth.
While CNBC was launching its first orbit in January of Rocket Lab, this initiative was postponed due to an Ocak engine control 39 issue that has since been corrected. As the problem is solved, Rocket Lab, who says CEO Peter Beck has been a in $ 3 billion pipeline 20 to CNBC over the next 18 months, has a launch activity and hopes to be released once a week until 2020. The next launch will be somewhere between December 10 and December 18, 2018, citing sources from the rocket.[SpaceFlight Now/CNBC]