The American-New Zealand company Rocket Lab carried out the fortieth launch of its Electron launcher last month (including an surborbital flight). Which is now the world’s first commercial microlauncher.
In the service of Earth observation
On August 23 at 11:45 p.m. UTC, a new microlauncher Electron of Rocket Lab was implemented from the peninsula of Mahiain New Zealand.
This involved placing an Earth observation satellite (radar) belonging to the Californian company into low circular orbit. Capella Space : Acadia 1.
A first
On August 23, Rocket Lab re-flighted for the first time one of Electron’s first stage engines, which had already been used in May 2022.
The August 23 flight also ended with a parachute descent of the first stage, before recovery at sea using a Rocket Lab ship.
A suborbital derivative of Electron
Since the beginning of the year, Electron has had 7 successful orbital missions, to which should be added a suborbital mission carried out on June 18. This carried a classified payload from the American military-industrial company. Dyneticsaboard a sounding rocket derived from Electron, called Haste (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron).
Success story
The company Rocket Lab, which was created in New Zealand in 2006 and now has two launch sites to implement its launcher, since last January it has also operated a launch pad on the regional spaceport of Wallops Islandlocated in Virginia.
Since its commissioning in May 2017, Electron has successfully completed 36 orbital missions and suffered 3 failures.
Today he is the first microlauncher commercial in the world. All categories combined, it is the second most frequently used American launcher, behind the Falcon 9 of SpaceX.
