Ground equipment caused premature end to first Rocket Lab launch
Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab’s first test flight of its Electron rocket in May was terminated early because of a loss of communications due to an “misconfiguration” of ground telemetry equipment.
The company said the fix for the issue was “simple” and that “corrective procedures” were put into place to prevent it from happening in the future. Rocket Lab said it did not make any major changes to the Electron hardware.
No word on when their second test launch will take place. For their Moon Express customer, the clock is ticking, as that company is a Google Lunar X-prize contestant that needs to launch its lunar rover before the end of this year to have a chance at winning the prize.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab’s first test flight of its Electron rocket in May was terminated early because of a loss of communications due to an “misconfiguration” of ground telemetry equipment.
The company said the fix for the issue was “simple” and that “corrective procedures” were put into place to prevent it from happening in the future. Rocket Lab said it did not make any major changes to the Electron hardware.
No word on when their second test launch will take place. For their Moon Express customer, the clock is ticking, as that company is a Google Lunar X-prize contestant that needs to launch its lunar rover before the end of this year to have a chance at winning the prize.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
It sounds eerily similar to the Japanese company, Interstellar Technologies, failure the other day:
http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/japanese-private-rocket-launch-terminates-early-due-of-communication-failure/
Edward,
I thought the same thing. In fact, initially I confused the two incidents.
It goes to show just how important the ground support side of the equation is. The rocket has to harness and control tremendous amounts of energy so it’s always the star of the show. Meanwhile, the ground support equipment is akin to all the people behind the scenes in a movie production, critical, but unseen.