INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Rocket Lab launched its tenth Electron spacecraft on Friday morning, successfully delivering payloads for clients Spaceflight and Alba
The launch company also had an important secondary mission for this launch: testing the guidance, control and navigation systems of their
first-stage rocket recovery system.
Rocket Lab announced earlier this year that it would be aiming to convert its Electron launch system
into a partially reusable one, after initially designing and operating it as a one-time-use launcher and spacecraft
To that end, Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck revealed how the company will look to effect a controlled re-entry for the Electron first-stage
rocket booster, after which it&ll be caught mid-air by a helicopter as it descends at a speed slowed by an onboard parachute.
This morning
launch provided a test for a key element of that system — the re-entry control and navigation equipment and software that helps the
first-stage effect the crucial first part of recovery, by returning to Earth atmosphere after separating from the rest of the launch
vehicle.
The first-stage re-entry seems to have gone according to plan, as Rocket Lab on Twitter termed it a &successful guided re-entry of
stage 1.& In fact, Beck said that the Stage 1 recovery actually went &better than expected,& which indicates it outperformed whatever
parameters the company had set to define success in this case — probably pretty broad, because the whole purpose of the re-entry in this
instance was to test and gather data.
Rocket Lab approach differs from SpaceX first-stage recovery process, which the company demonstrated
yet again during a launch earlier this week
Rocket Lab won&t be using propulsion to achieve either re-entry or landing, like SpaceX does, which will be more efficient and practical for
Instead, it turning the booster around in space using a controlled burn to orient it optimally for a re-entry that helps it shed enough of
its speed to allow it to deploy its parachute and descend at a rate where it can be caught by the helicopter — a maneuver that actually
relatively simple compared to a propulsive landing, despite its seeming complexity.
Depending on what happens with recovery of this booster,
which Rocket Lab didn&t attempt to catch mid-air but which it is hoping to recover from the ocean, we should get an idea of next steps —
including possibly when we&ll see an attempt to not just recover a rocket, but also refurbish and reuse it.
