Rocket Lab to attempt 1st stage recovery by helicopter, beginning early next year
Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab announced today that based on the data obtained during its previous launch in November, the company will attempt a helicopter recovery in the air of its Electron rocket’s first stage, starting with its first launches in 2022.
With the success of this latest mission, Rocket Lab will now move to aerial capture attempts with a helicopter for future recovery missions in the first half of 2022. Rocket Lab’s recovery helicopter will include auxiliary fuel tanks for extended flight time during the capture attempt. While Rocket Lab’s engineers and recovery vessel will also be stationed at sea, Rocket Lab’s primary objective will be to return Electron’s booster to the mainland while attached to the helicopter. Improvements to the launch vehicle for this next recovery attempt will include a thermal protection system applied to the entire stage and its nine Rutherford engines to help it endure heat of up to 2,400 degrees Celsius during re-entry, and modifications to the parachute system including an engagement line for the recovery helicopter to capture and secure the booster.
The company has a launch scheduled for the end of November, but apparently it is not going to attempt a first stage recovery by helicopter during that mission.
If successful, Rocket Lab will have become the second company able to reuse its first stage, and thus cut the price it charges for launches significantly.
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Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab announced today that based on the data obtained during its previous launch in November, the company will attempt a helicopter recovery in the air of its Electron rocket’s first stage, starting with its first launches in 2022.
With the success of this latest mission, Rocket Lab will now move to aerial capture attempts with a helicopter for future recovery missions in the first half of 2022. Rocket Lab’s recovery helicopter will include auxiliary fuel tanks for extended flight time during the capture attempt. While Rocket Lab’s engineers and recovery vessel will also be stationed at sea, Rocket Lab’s primary objective will be to return Electron’s booster to the mainland while attached to the helicopter. Improvements to the launch vehicle for this next recovery attempt will include a thermal protection system applied to the entire stage and its nine Rutherford engines to help it endure heat of up to 2,400 degrees Celsius during re-entry, and modifications to the parachute system including an engagement line for the recovery helicopter to capture and secure the booster.
The company has a launch scheduled for the end of November, but apparently it is not going to attempt a first stage recovery by helicopter during that mission.
If successful, Rocket Lab will have become the second company able to reuse its first stage, and thus cut the price it charges for launches significantly.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Here’s a paper
https://www.ulalaunch.com/docs/default-source/evolution/partial-rocket-reuse-using-mid-air-recovery-2008-7874.pdf#:~:text=Mid-Air%20recovery%20%28MAR%29%20has%20been%20developed%20for%20many,aircraft%20flew%20through%20the%20wake%20of%20the%20parachute.
It doesn’t have the “cool” factor that landing the rocket does, but it seems effective enough.
Not as cool as landing, but it may be the best that can be done with such a small stage.
It goes without saying that this will give them a leg up on other smallsat launchers not only in booster reuse but also in being able to quickly review each booster for improvements that will increase both reliability and reuse.
“Cool” doesn’t pay the bills
I really thought the first re-usable would have been the winged Baikal. It was never properly supported. Fly-backs only need to ignite once…and by not having to ignite twice-coming back tail-end first-the engines could be made to last longer.
The ‘cool factor’ of tail-sitters may indeed be blinding investors. Rocket recovery methods of all types is needed. Sea Dragon, wet workshops for stage-and-a-half designs is also re-use.
Col Beausabre noted: ““Cool” doesn’t pay the bills”
Well, it does, a little. Got to have some sizzle with the steak. Most investors are not specialists in your area of expertise. They are specialists in return-on-investment, but also like some ‘wow’ factor. When they aren’t flying their Learjets to Nova Scotia, they can go to the Cape, and watch ‘their’ rockets land.
It’s been done Before :History:
How to Catch a Spy Satellite
https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/space-race/online/sec400/sec432.htm
Fairchild Flying Boxcar Sat Film recovery:
https://www.military.com/video/operations-and-strategy/covert-operations/how-to-catch-a-falling-spy-satellite/3841223113001
The winged Baikal was never designed for orbital flight.
The swing wing design was pretty good but it did have a few flaws.
The center of balance being the biggest.
Any left over fuel would slosh around. First at the very tail end then it would move more to the middle during level flight then back to the tail again for landing.
Could you imagine a one ton ball rolling around inside a cargo plane.
One thing they don‘t need is an expensive guidance/navigation system, and the money to develop one. The person driving the helicopter is the GNC package!
With pointy end up, flame-y end down landings, aren’t we looking at the future ability to quickly restack the launch vehicle so that it can have a high launch cadence? Landing on a runway seems cooler to me, but it takes a movement to the launch pad and a rotation before restacking for launch, each action taking valuable time to perform. Landing flame-y end down at the pad, as SpaceX plans, only requires the restack move.
Rocket Lab, of course, is not landing but is catching. Unlike SpaceX, their idea is not to be able to launch multiple times each day but to save the construction time so that they can once or more times each launch week, so at this time they are not as eager to land next to the launch pad. The goals are different, so the strategies are different.
Should read: “so that they can launch once or more times each week”
“Not as cool as landing, but it may be the best that can be done with such a small stage.”
That’s the problem. It’s a very small stage, and the mass penalty for the necessary propellant, and the hydraulics for gimbaling on landing were just prohibitive.
No, it appears Peter Beck is going to leave retropropulsion to his next generation rocket, the Neutron. It will actually be large enough to absorb the mass penalties.
Kewl!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kwAPr5G6WA
sippin_bourbon,
Thank you for the excellent video.
I like the way Peter Beck thinks. What a surprising way to return the fairings.