Rocket Lab Reveals Its New Kick Stage
Rocket Lab successfully circularizes orbit with new Electron kick stage, Rocket Lab
“Rocket Lab, a US aerospace company with operations in New Zealand, has successfully tested a previously unannounced kick stage on the Still Testing Electron launch vehicle, using it to circularize the orbits of the two Spire Lemur-2 CubeSats on board. The kick stage was flown and tested on board the recent Still Testing flight that was successfully launched on 21 January 2018 NZDT from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. The complex mission was a success, with the new apogee kick stage coasting in orbit for around 40 minutes before powering up and igniting Rocket Lab’s new restartable liquid propulsion engine called Curie, then shutting down and deploying payloads. With the new kick stage Rocket Lab can execute multiple burns to place numerous payloads into different orbits.”
AKA ‘Neil’.
Great news. A fully functional launch service. I admit I was a bit concerned about this but it was all in hand. Now to see if:
– a reliable launch cadence emerges, and
– an ongoing niche market exists.
I wonder if Rocket Lab will be tempted to move to larger payloads down the track, say around the once considered SpaceX F1 and/or F1e sizing?
Cheers
I suspect moving to larger payloads wouldn’t be a good idea. The small spacecraft market has a bit of a cliff at 180 kg to low Earth orbit. In 2010 the Air Force and Moog developed something called a EELV Secondary Payload Adapter, which is basically a standardized interface for secondary payloads on an Atlas, Delta or Falcon 9. It can carry up to six small spacecraft, each with a mass of up to 180 kg. The standardization is a real big advantage, both in cost and flexibility. So much so that 150-180 kg has sort of become a standard size for small spacecraft. The Rocket Labs Electron’s payload capability can handle ESPA-class spacecraft, but doubling its payload wouldn’t double its market.
Rocket Lab can only do bigger payloads away from New Zealand. They will need a much bigger launchpad and tank farm. However a new facility to processed bigger payload is the main obstacle.
Of course Rocket Lab can set up at Kodiak, Wallops, Vandenberg and/or the Cape where processing facilities exists.
I believe that once they’ve proven themselves with 3++ successful missions they’ll be flying out of the small launcher complex at LC-39C, which is inside the fence.
http://www.americaspace.com…
And IIRC there’s another small launcher complex on the Cape Master Plan.
The least likely new launch site for the Electron will be LC-39C at Kennedy IMO. There is the issue of the maximum number of about 50 flights that the Eastern range can support annually. The priority will be NRO/military, NASA, large comsat corporations, SpaceX/Blue Origin then small launchers. As of now it takes at least 2 days for the range to setup for the next launch.
Rocket Lab will be much better off launching from Wallops and get some incentives from the state of Virginia for increasing the orbital flight rate by a magnitude for the MARS launch facility. Said facility is perfect for Electron SSO flights along with payload processing.
There is also the possibility that Lockheed Martin could launch the Electron from Scotland for European payloads. The British government will contribution to regain orbital launch capability after their self-imposed retirement from the space launch business with the final flight of the Black Arrow from Woomera.
I read somewhere that the market already exists…opened up by SpaceX dropping the industry’s target price point but not it’s lead time or flexibility for satellite projects who’s funding is too small to choose their own orbit. When you piggy-back a payload, your stuck with whatever orbit the primary payload puts you in. This is why Rocket Labs was the chosen launcher for one of the Lunar XPrize contestants. The contestant was able to by he whole mission.
This kick stage doubles down on that market nich.
Wow, teaching both the old guard and the new guard how it should be done. Again congratulations!