![]() Like other pure-play space stocks, the company's stock has regained ground this month after a brutal 2022, with shares up roughly 28% year to date. Rocket Lab stock was down about 2% in early trading Wednesday from its previous close of $4.97 a share. The company is slated to release fourth-quarter results after market close on Feb. Rocket Lab previously said it expects to conduct 14 Electron launches in 2023, with anywhere from four to six flying from LC-2 in Wallops. Rocket Lab Electron launches possible with our game-changing flight safety technology," he said. "We're proud to have made this and future U.S. NASA's completion of the system fills a "critical gap in modernizing our nation's launch ranges," Wallops director David Pierce said in a statement after Rocket Lab's launch. ![]() launch ranges." NASA also says NAFTU will help save time and money associated with conducting an orbital rocket launch safely - cost savings that will benefit the agency and companies alike. While some rocket building companies have developed proprietary versions of autonomous flight safety software, NASA heralds its NAFTU system as "revolutionary" since it can be used by "any launch provider at all U.S. Later reports indicated that the three satellites on board had separated successfully and had established communications with their operator, Hawkeye360, which will use them to track radio sources on Earth.The software was designed to serve the role traditionally performed by a person, known as a "range safety officer," who monitors the launch's data. During this time, a couple of objects were briefly visible below the second stage-likely the first stage and/or fairings catching the last of the sunlight at altitude or heating up in the atmosphere. The second stage remained dimly visible to the naked eye until a couple of minutes before it shut down, too. Things went dark as the main engines shut down, but a bit of light quickly returned as the second-stage engine took over. If Electron had an equivalent moment, it was over just as soon as it began.įrom there, the launch benefitted from the dry, cold, and impossibly clear skies that feature prominently in East Coast winters. Heavy launch vehicles often seem to hesitate shortly after leaving the pad, leaving my mind struggling to accept that their acceleration is enough to send them off to space. Its low weight also meant Electron left the pad in a hurry. On a heavy enough rocket, the bass is powerful enough to create a physical sensation Electron lacked that punch. The best description I've read compared it to the noise of tearing fabric shifted to bass registers. Around the same time, the sound arrived from the launch pad two miles away. ![]() Its team designs, builds, and launches the. While the electron was still visible from two miles away as flames first appeared underneath it, it quickly vanished as it left the launch pad, the bright flames were quickly all you could see thanks to the nighttime launch. Rocket Lab is an orbital launch provider, delivering rapid and repeatable access to orbit for small satellites. (My only prior experience was a vaguely remembered one over 40 years ago.) Advertisement So the launch experience is correspondingly different from what I'd heard from others about what experiencing a rocket launch is like. It's quite a bit smaller than even the Falcon 9. The Electron is a relatively small rocket, capable of putting only a few hundred kilograms into orbit, so the launch experience is very different from massive vehicles like the Shuttle, SLS, and Falcon Heavy. But it's also critical for the launch site, which is billed as a spaceport but hasn't seen much traffic leaving Earth. The launch is critical for Rocket Lab, which in some ways invested the future of the company in its Virginia operations. But on Tuesday, everything went as smoothly as it is possible to imagine, and the Electron shot to orbit almost as soon as the launch window opened. Then weather and the end-of-year holidays kept pushing the launch back. ![]() The lights there were focused on a small, slender needle-small enough to be hauled to the launch pad by a pickup truck.įor years, the Electron rocket and the company behind it had been stuck in limbo at the Virginia launch site, waiting on various approvals-for regulatory agencies to share enough paperwork with each other to convince everyone that the launch was safe. Instead, all eyes were focused on a bright patch of artificial light on a barrier island a couple of miles away. It was a gorgeous scene, but one that everyone was ignoring. Wallops Flight Center, VA - Off in the southwest, the last colors of sunset lit up the rim of the sky, as a crescent Moon and two planets lined up above.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |