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posted by martyb on Sunday July 05 2020, @12:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the It-would-have-worked-but-someone-failed-to-remove-the-lens-cap dept.

Rocket Lab’s 13th Launch Fails to Reach Orbit After Unknown Problem

‘We Lost The Flight’ - Rocket Lab’s 13th Launch Fails To Reach Orbit After Unknown Problem:

Today, Saturday, July 4 at 9.21 P.M. Eastern Time, the company’s “Pics Or It Didn’t Happen” mission lifted off as planned from the company’s Launch Complex 1 on the Māhia Peninsula in New Zealand.

The primary payload on board was CE-SAT-1B, a satellite for Japanase[sic] company Canon Electronics. Also on the mission was the Faraday-1 satellite for U.K. company In-Space Missions, as well as five satellites for the U.S. Earth imaging company Planet.

The goal was to place the satellites into an orbit 500 kilometers above Earth. However, while the launch took place as planned, including separation of the second stage of the rocket, something subsequently went wrong.

[...] Problems emerged about six minutes into the flight, when a live video from the rocket was interrupted. The speed of the rocket then began to fall, along with a drop in altitude, before the mission’s failure was announced.

[...] The exact cause of the failure is not yet known. However, it is the company’s first failure on one of its commercial missions since it began full operations more than three years ago.

After a Second Stage Failure, Rocket Lab Loses Seven Satellites

After a second stage failure, Rocket Lab loses seven satellites:

On Sunday morning, local time in New Zealand, Rocket Lab launched its 13th mission. The booster's first stage performed normally, but just as the second stage neared an altitude of 200km, something went wrong and the vehicle was lost.

[...] "We lost the flight late into the mission," said Peter Beck, the company's founder and chief executive, on Twitter. "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, dubbed "Pics Or It Didn't Happen," carried 5 SuperDove satellites for the imaging company Planet, as well as commercial payloads both for Canon Electronics and In-Space Missions.

"The In-Space team is absolutely gutted by this news," the company said after the loss. Its Faraday-1 spacecraft hosted multiple experiments within a 6U CubeSat. "Two years of hard work from an incredibly committed group of brilliant engineers up in smoke. It really was a very cool little spacecraft."

Rocket Lab Electron launch fails to reach orbit, 7 satellites lost

Rocket Lab Electron launch fails to reach orbit, 7 satellites lost:

A Rocket Lab Electron booster failed to reach orbit while attempting to launch seven small satellites for three different customers on Saturday (July 4).

The two-stage Electron booster rose off the pad at Rocket Lab's New Zealand launch site at 5:19 p.m. EST (0919 GMT; 9:19 p.m. local New Zealand time), carrying seven Earth-imaging satellites aloft, including five payloads for satellite-imaging company Planet, as well as a satellite for Canon Electronics and one for UK-based In-Space Missions. But a problem during the rocket's second-stage engine burn led to the loss of all seven payloads.

Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck apologized for the failure on Twitter. "I am incredibly sorry that we failed to deliver our customers satellites today," he wrote on Twitter. "Rest assured we will find the issue, correct it and be back on the pad soon."

Video: Watch the Rocket Lab launch just before it failed to reach orbit

The launch seemed to proceed as planned for the first crucial minutes of flight. Then, about six minutes into the launch, the live video feed from the rocket froze. At that point, the company's live broadcast showed that the rocket started to lose speed, and altitude. It was then that Rocket Lab cut the live video feed.

[...] Rocket Lab was originally scheduled to launch this Electron on Friday (July 3), but delayed the flight to Sunday (July 5) due to bad weather.. But a new weather outlook prompted Rocket Lab to move the launch one day earlier — a rarity in the spaceflight industry. (Typically launch dates move further out, rather than forward.)


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2Original Submission #3

 
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  • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday July 05 2020, @02:05PM (2 children)

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Sunday July 05 2020, @02:05PM (#1016505) Homepage Journal

    This is what insurance is for.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 05 2020, @03:42PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 05 2020, @03:42PM (#1016523)

    This is what insurance is for.

    I bet their rates just went up.

    • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday July 05 2020, @10:17PM

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Sunday July 05 2020, @10:17PM (#1016670)

      I heard Peter Beck apologizing on the radio yesterday, and I got the impression that the satellite owner is responsible for insurance.