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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday August 05 2020, @08:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the rocket-science dept.

Rocket Lab will resume missions in August following launch failure:

Rocket Lab's Electron vehicle will resume ferrying satellites and other payloads to space this month. The FAA has given the company the go-ahead to launch Electron rockets again after figuring out why its 13th mission ended in failure. [...] The company launched an investigation with the FAA and managed to pinpoint the culprit: an anomalous electrical connection.

Apparently, one of the rocket's electrical connections was "intermittently secure through flight," increasing resistance and causing the component to heat up and expand. That, in turn, caused surrounding components to liquefy, which led to the electrical system's disconnection and ultimately to the engine's shutdown a few minutes into the second stage burn.

[...] Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said in a statement:

"The issue occurred under incredibly specific and unique circumstances, causing the connection to fail in a way that we wouldn't detect with standard testing. Our team has now reliably replicated the issue in test and identified that it can be mitigated through additional testing and procedures."

The next Electron launch doesn't have an exact date yet, but it will take off from Rocket Lab's Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand.

Previously:
After a Second Stage Failure, Rocket Lab Loses Seven Satellites


Original Submission

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After a Second Stage Failure, Rocket Lab Loses Seven Satellites 14 comments

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:

Rocket Lab Plans to Go Public, Announces Much Larger "Neutron" Rocket 4 comments

Rocket Lab plans to merge with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC), become a publicly traded company, and develop a medium-lift partially reusable rocket. "Neutron" would be competitive with SpaceX's Falcon 9 and capable of launching cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station.

The funding from the SPAC merger will enable another new initiative. Rocket Lab said it is working on a medium-class launch vehicle called Neutron, capable of placing up to 8,000 kilograms into low Earth orbit, more than 20 times the capacity of Electron. The company disclosed few technical details about Neutron, but said that it intends to make the first stage reusable through propulsive landing on an ocean platform, similar to SpaceX's recovery of Falcon 9 first stages.

The new vehicle is intended to support the growing interest in satellite megaconstellations. "Neutron's eight-ton lift capacity will make it ideally sized to deploy satellites in batches to specific orbital planes, creating a more targeted and streamlined approach to building out megaconstellations," Beck said in the statement.

Rocket Lab had previously resisted building a larger vehicle. "There's no market for it," Beck said during a side session of the Smallsat Conference in August 2020. "If you build a larger rocket, you relegate yourself to being purely rideshare, and rideshare is really well-served."

The first Neutron launch is scheduled for 2024 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia. The vehicle will leverage the infrastructure the company built at Launch Complex 2 there for the Electron rocket, which will make its debut from that pad later this year. Rocket Lab said it's "assessing locations across America" for a factory that would handle large-scale production of Neutron.

Press release.

Also at The Verge and CNBC.

Previously (company history as seen on SN):


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @08:33PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @08:33PM (#1031935)

    Arc liquefaction or vibration liquefaction? I've also heard of sonic liquefaction.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @09:43PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @09:43PM (#1031971)

      Sounds like a cold solder joint overheated and caused the surrounding components to melt. Many moons ago the USAF taught me how to solder to NASA standards.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @11:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @11:21PM (#1032017)

    He got to practice with cars first.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 06 2020, @01:22AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday August 06 2020, @01:22AM (#1032072) Journal

    Destroy at least one customer payload.

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