Rocket Lab takes off in third mission of 2019

Saturday, 29 June 2019

Rocket Lab has successfully launched its Electron rocket for the seventh time.

The 'Make It Rain' launch was lifting seven small satellites to low Earth orbit on the Electron launch vehicle, in a rideshare mission procured by Spaceflight.

It was Rocket Lab's third mission of 2019.

The launch took place as scheduled as 4.30pm from Launch Complex 1, close to Ahuriri Point at the southern tip of Māhia Peninsula, on the east coast.

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Satellites on the mission included BlackSky's Global-3 micro satellite, two US Special Operations Command Prometheus and Melbourne Space Program's ACRUX-1 CubeSat. 

The total mission payload mass was 80kg. 

After lift-off and first-stage separation, Electron's second stage was planned to be used to take the payloads to an elliptical orbit, where Electron's Kick Stage would separate.

The Kick Stage's Curie engine would then ignite and propel the Kick Stage and payloads to a circular orbit for precise deployment.

Following payload deployment, the Kick Stage was capable of re-igniting its engine to perform a de-orbit manoeuvre. This would help the Kick Stage to be pulled into the Earth's atmosphere faster, leaving no debris in orbit. 

The mission took the total number of satellites deployed to orbit by Rocket Lab to 35.