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After a failure to reach orbit last year and several delays, Rocket Lab has successfully launched an Electron rocket into orbit:
Rocket Lab has returned to action with the second launch of its Electron rocket from the Māhia Peninsula from the North Island of New Zealand's eastern coast. Several attempts to launch at the end of last year were scrubbed before regrouping for a new attempt – which was also scrubbed, due to a wayward boat, a technical issue and then the weather – before finally launching at 01:43 UTC on Sunday and appears to have been a success.
Much like Vector Space – which is currently in small-scale suborbital testing with aims to enter the launch market next year – Rocket Lab caters to much the same market, offering small satellite users a dedicated launch system to eliminate ride-sharing requirements on the larger, more established launchers.
According to the company's website, Rocket Lab lists its launch services with Electron as costing $4.9 million (USD) per flight.
Rocket Lab has two more upcoming launches planned for Q1 2018, including a lunar lander for Moon Express. The Electron rocket will deliver the Moon Express payload into low-Earth orbit, where the lander will use its own thrusters to get to the Moon:
Once in low-Earth orbit, the MX-1E will need to complete a translunar injection (TLI) burn, cruise through space, conduct a breaking[sic] burn to enter lunar orbit, and finally complete descent and landing burns—all by itself. It would be an unprecedented accomplishment, a single-stage spacecraft that can make it all the way to the surface of the moon from low-Earth orbit.
How will a cheap disposable rocket fare against reusable rockets?
Also at Wired.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 22 2018, @02:43PM (3 children)
Too bad they had to resort to Silicon Valley investors to make it a reality.
Question from the dark side: is their launch capacity sufficient to loft an NK nuke?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Monday January 22 2018, @03:02PM (1 child)
It is large enough to carry a nuclear weapon, but NK is unlikely to ask them to do so. NK has an indigenous launch-to-orbit capability; They don't need to buy it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 22 2018, @05:01PM
Of course, as a matter of national pride, the would never want to buy such a thing.
As a matter of practicality... building warheads is relatively expensive, so you want a reliable launch vehicle...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday January 22 2018, @03:04PM
NK's problem is apparently miniaturizing nukes to fit on missiles.
Fat Man [wikipedia.org] was 4,670 kg (too heavy for a missile), and the B53 was 4,010 kg. That's probably around the maximum weight for a usable nuclear missile warhead. But then you have smaller stuff like the W91 [wikipedia.org] (140 kg). The W88 [wikipedia.org] had a mass of about 360 kg. And there are more in between, around 1,500 kg for example.
The Electron rocket has a payload of 150–225 kg to 500 km sun-synchronous orbit [wikipedia.org]. The Moon Express payload to LEO has a mass of about 200 kg.
The payload should be able to go up for suborbital ballistic trajectories. I don't know how much (math is hard!).
How much does a NK nuke weigh? There doesn't appear to be any estimates on the public web.
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