Watch Rocket Lab launch and attempt to capture first stage with helicopter
I have embedded below the live stream of Rocket Lab’s launch today from New Zealand, scheduled for a 3:41 pm (Pacific) liftoff. The rocket carries 34 satellites for deployment.
More exciting however will be the attempt to recover the first stage. On this launch the Electron rocket’s first stage will control its descent using both thrusters and parachutes so that a helicopter can make the first attempt to snatch it out of the air before it hits the ocean.
If successful, Rocket Lab will then hopefully be able to reuse the first stage on a later launch.
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
I have embedded below the live stream of Rocket Lab’s launch today from New Zealand, scheduled for a 3:41 pm (Pacific) liftoff. The rocket carries 34 satellites for deployment.
More exciting however will be the attempt to recover the first stage. On this launch the Electron rocket’s first stage will control its descent using both thrusters and parachutes so that a helicopter can make the first attempt to snatch it out of the air before it hits the ocean.
If successful, Rocket Lab will then hopefully be able to reuse the first stage on a later launch.
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
They caught it!
RKLB is up half a buck to $8 a share in after market trading after after a claimed recovery of the rocket’s first stage. I say “claimed” because it wasn’t obvious from the video that capture was successful.
Update. They are saying they caught it, but the pilot had some different/odd load characteristics. For safety reasons he cut it loose near the vessel they had staged just for that reason.
So. Partial success on the catch.
Call me the Doubting Thomas but I have not yet seen the booster capture image or a positive announcement from Rocket Lab that they caught it. That they were very close is plain to see but no swinging booster images have crossed my screen yet. Does anyone have a link?
Thomas
Tom,
They announced it on the live feed. The camera angle was not great.
At 52:450, if you put it in slow-mo, the yellow line is snagged. I am guessing the camera was pointing straight down.
As the aircraft flew forward the drag pulled it back out of view.
I too was watching hoping to catch it.
Toward the end, before they went into the payload deployment sequence she says they he dropped it for safety.
It is kind of funny. One of their earlier missions was called “Pics or it didn’t happen”.
The video just showed a brief glimpse of the capture hook and rope kinda starting to entangle with the first stage parachute line then it went out of view. They really need to up their game on the video they take. When the announcer said they had caught it I took her word for it, so if I was wrong I apologize. Too bad they had to cut it loose if that’s what happened. Hopefully some more video or picture evidence will come out soon to verify. If I didn’t have to go to the lab right now I would have more time to investigate this but an MRI machine awaits my presence.
t-dub noted: “They really need to up their game on the video they take.”
I think this was a thread on the forum a few years ago. There is a developing field for space launch video. And those who know how to do it.