WASHINGTON — Rocket Lab announced a new mission for its suborbital launch vehicle — a 3D-printed hypersonic drone built by Australia’s Hypersonix for the U.S. Defense Department. The mission, projected for early 2025, is funded by DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit. DIU, based in Silicon Valley, works with commercial space companies […]
Rocket Lab
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WASHINGTON — Rocket Lab expects to resume Electron launches in late November after concluding a “largely improbable” combination of events caused the vehicle’s previous launch to fail. The company said Nov. 8 that it is targeting a return to flight of Electron no earlier than Nov. 28 from the company’s […]
Rocket Lab will bounce back quickly from last month’s launch failure, if all goes according to plan. The California-based company is still investigating what caused its Electron rocket to fail on Sept. 19, resulting in the loss of a commercial Earth-observing satellite. But that doesn’t mean Electron will be grounded […]
LAS VEGAS — Rocket Lab is preparing to return its Electron rocket to flight before the end of the year as it completes an investigation into a launch failure in September. In an Oct. 25 statement, the company said it received authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration to resume launches […]
LONG BEACH, Calif. — Rocket Lab has opened a new engine development center in a building that, six months earlier, was the headquarters of a competing launch company, Virgin Orbit. Rocket Lab held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Oct. 4 for its Engine Development Center here. The 13,400-square-meter facility will be used […]
Rocket Lab will launch a radar Earth-observation satellite for the California company Capella Space early Tuesday (Sept. 19), and you can watch the action live. An Electron rocket carrying one of Capella’s “Acadia” synthetic aperture radar (SAR) spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Rocket Lab’s New Zealand site on […]
WASHINGTON — Rocket Lab successfully reflew an engine on an Electron launch Aug. 23 as the company moves a step closer to reusing the entire rocket booster. The Electron rocket lifted off from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 7:45 p.m. Eastern. The “We Love the Nightlife” […]
WASHINGTON — A Japanese company developing a constellation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging satellites is the latest to turn to Rocket Lab after the bankruptcy of rival launch company Virgin Orbit. Rocket Lab announced Aug. 17 that it signed a contract with Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space (iQPS) […]