Rocket Lab has successfully launched Electron into orbit
nzherald.co.nz
nzherald.co.nz
I always thought launches had to be close to the equator though, hence Europe launches from Guiana, the US from Florida, Russia from Kazakhstan, etc. so I wonder why they're doing it from the NZ mainland and not an island further north.
Their original plan was to do it from Canterbury which is even further south.
From [1]:
> The new site, located on the remote Mahia Peninsula, does allow Rocket Lab to launch to a wider range of orbits than it could from its original site. “We get from sun-synchronous orbit to 38 degrees inclination out of that site,” he said. That is important, he said, since the company is hearing from potential customers who want to go to a variety of orbits.
> “Traditionally the smallsat guys would want to go to sun-synchronous because there’s a lot of rides there if you’re ridesharing,” he said. “But when you given them the opportunity to choose their orbital plane, they want to go to all sorts of planes, which is very interesting.”
And in an older story [2] about the earlier launch site, being near a city was cited as a major advantage:
> No people live in the area itself, although Christchurch, a city of nearly 350,000 people, is about a 45-minute drive away. “It really is an ideal site,” he said.
> Rocket Lab cannot do launches due east from Kaitorete Spit because the vehicles would overfly a nearby peninsula, but can launch to orbital inclinations ranging from 45 degrees to sun synchronous by flying to the south. Beck said the inability to launch due east not an issue for most of its customers, who are primarily interested in sun synchronous orbit.
BTW interviews on spacenews.com seem to be one of the best places to find info on Rocket Lab. For example in a recent piece [3] we have the rather interesting information that:
> the company has moved into a new headquarters facility in Huntington Beach, California. The 150,000-square foot building will be used to manufacture engines for the Electron rocket as well as electronics systems. The vehicles themselves will continue to be assembled at a factory in New Zealand
[1] http://spacenews.com/rocket-lab-plans-electron-test-launches... [2] http://spacenews.com/rocket-lab-selects-new-zealand-launch-s... [3] http://spacenews.com/rocket-lab-raises-75-million-to-scale-u...
“It was a great flight. We had a great first stage burn, stage separation, second stage ignition and fairing separation. We didn’t quite reach orbit and we’ll be investigating why, however reaching space in our first test puts us in an incredibly strong position to accelerate the commercial phase of our programme, deliver our customers to orbit and make space open for business,” says Beck.