Rocket Lab's $11.5 million rocket burns up on re-entering atmosphere
Sunday, 5 July 2020
Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck said the company’s lost rocket would have burnt up on re-entering the atmosphere.
The company was now working closely with the United States’ Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to determine why the US7.5 million (NZ$11.5m) Electron rocket was lost with its payload of commercial satellites on board.
“We will leave no stone unturned to figure out what happened today so we can learn from it, and get back to the pad,” Beck said.
The loss of the rocket did not threaten the financial viability of Rocket Lab, Beck said, but it had hurt the company’s pride.
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“Just about every launch vehicle in history experiences one failure,” Beck said.
“Electron is one of the most frequently launched rockets in the world today, and we’ve had 12 successful consecutive launches to space, and this is a bit of a reminder of how hard this is,” he said.
Despite the loss happening on the company’s 13th mission, Beck said he was not superstitious.
Beck could not say how long the investigation into the cause of the mission's failure would take.
”We won’t put another vehicle into the sky until we are really, really happy, and we have got thousands and thousands of channels of data to trawl through to figure out route cause and make any corrections,” he said.
”It’s not a great day, but we will learn from this and be back quickly,” Beck said.
Beck tweeted the loss of the rocket at 9.47am.
“We lost the flight late into the mission,” he tweeted.
“I am incredibly sorry that we failed to deliver our customers satellites today. Rest assured we will find the issue, correct it and be back on the pad soon.”
The mission name was “Pics Or It Didn’t Happen” carrying seven small satellites to a 500km circular low Earth orbit for a range of customers.
It launched from Rocket Lab’s base on the Mahia Peninsula at around 9.20am.
Footage on Rocket Lab’s website showed the electron rocket blasting off, leaving the Earth’s atmosphere, and preparing to deploy satellites.
Then the footage ends with Rocket Lab saying the signal from electron had become too weak to continue the video feed.
In a statement, Rocket Lab said: “An issue was experienced today during Rocket Lab's launch that caused the loss of the vehicle. We are deeply sorry to the customers on board Electron.”
Later, Beck issued a statement reading: “The issue occurred approximately four minutes into the flight on July 5, 2020 and resulted in the safe loss of the vehicle.
“As a result, the payloads onboard Electron were not deployed to orbit. Electron remained within the predicted launch corridors and caused no harm to personnel or the launch site. Rocket Lab is working closely with the FAA to investigate the anomaly and identify its root cause to correct the issue to move forward.”
And, he said: “We are deeply sorry to our customers Spaceflight Inc., Canon Electronics Inc., Planet, and In-Space Missions for the loss of their payloads.
“We know many people poured their hearts and souls into those spacecraft. Today's anomaly is a reminder that space launch can be unforgiving, but we will identify the issue, rectify it, and be safely back on the pad as soon as possible,” Beck said.
“The launch team operated with professionalism and expertise to implement systems and procedures that ensured the anomaly was managed safely. I’m proud of the way they have responded to a tough day.”
“Rocket Lab currently has more than eight Electron vehicles in production, ready for a rapid return to flight as soon as investigations are complete and any required corrective actions are in place,” he said.
Rocket Lab’s website details the satellites that were to be deployed.
“The primary payload aboard this mission, Canon Electronics Inc.’s CE-SAT-IB, was procured by satellite rideshare and mission management provider Spaceflight Inc.”
“The mission objective for the CE-SAT-IB satellite is to demonstrate Canon Electronics Inc.’s Earth-imaging technology with high-resolution and wide-angle cameras, as well as test the microsatellite for mass production.”
And, it said: “Planet’s satellites are capable of imaging the Earth’s entire landmass on a near-daily basis. This unprecedented dataset helps researchers, students, businesses and governments discover patterns, detect early signals of change, and make timely, informed decisions.”