Catch a falling rocket and return it to shore …
On Tuesday (it will still be Monday night in New York), Rocket Lab, a small company with a small rocket, aims to perform an impressive feat during its last launch off the east coast of New Zealand. After sending a payload of 34 small satellites into orbit, the company will use a helicopter to capture the rocket’s 39-foot acceleration phase before it explodes in the Pacific.
If the accelerator is in good condition, Rocket Lab can repair the vehicle and then use it for another orbital launch, an achievement achieved so far by only one company, Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Here’s what you need to know.
When and how can I watch the launch and capture attempt?
The start is currently scheduled for 18:41 Eastern Time. Rocket Lab will broadcast the mission video live on its YouTube channel or you can watch it in the built-in player above. The stream is scheduled to start about 20 minutes before the start.
Why is Rocket Lab trying to catch its booster?
In the space launch industry, rockets were expensive disposable products. Reusing them helps reduce the cost of delivering payloads into space and can speed up the pace of launches by reducing the number of rockets that need to be produced.
“Eighty percent of the price of the entire rocket is in this first phase, both in terms of materials and labor,” said Peter Beck, CEO of Rocket Lab, in an interview Friday.
SpaceX is a pioneer in a new era in reusable rockets and now regularly lands the first stages of its Falcon 9 rockets and flies them over and over again. The second stages of the Falcon 9 (as well as the Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket) are still discarded, usually burning when re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. The next-generation SuperX rocket, called the Starship, will be entirely reusable. Competitors such as Blue Origin and the United Launch Alliance are similarly developing missiles that are at least partially reusable, as are companies in China.
NASA’s space shuttles were also partially reusable, but required extensive and expensive work after each flight, and they never kept their promise of aircraft-like operations.
How will the trapping operation work?
After launch, the accelerator will be separated from the second stage of the Electron rocket at an altitude of about 50 miles and during the descent will accelerate to 5200 miles per hour.
A system of pushing devices that emit cold gas will guide the amplifier in the event of a fall, and thermal protection will protect it from temperatures above 4300 degrees Fahrenheit.
Atmospheric friction will act as a brake. About 7 minutes, 40 seconds after takeoff, the speed of the amplifier will slow to less than twice the speed of sound. At this point, a small parachute called a bully will be deployed, adding extra resistance. Then a larger main parachute further slows the booster to a calmer speed.
A Sikorsky S-92 helicopter hovering in the 5,000- to 10,000-foot altitude area will meet the accelerator in the air, dragging a hook-and-drop line across the line between the landing gear and the main parachute.
Once it catches the booster, the helicopter must transport it to a Rocket Lab ship or all the way back to land.
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