Ta awaria może zagrozić misji Moon Express w ramach konkursu Google Lunar X Prize, którego rozstrzygnięcie planowane jest do końca 2017.
Pierwszy start Electrona nieudany 25.05. o 04:20:00 z Onenui Station (półwysep Mahia, Wyspa Północna, Nowa Zelandia) wystrzelony został pierwszy egzemplarz RN Electron. Miała ona wynieść w T+7' 24" na orbitę o parametrach: hp=300 km, ha=500 km, i=83° pakiet pomiarowy
It's a Test, który pozostał połączony z ostatnim stopniem rakiety .
Lot zakończył się awarią na etapie pracy drugiego stopnia.http://lk.astronautilus.pl/n170516.htm#03Rakietowy czwartek (25.05)BY KRZYSZTOF KANAWKA ON 25 MAJA 2017
W czwartek 25 maja doszło do startu dwóch rakiet orbitalnych: Electron z Nowej Zelandii i Sojuza-2.1b z Rosji. Jeden z tych startów był nieudany.
Nieudany debiut ElectronaDo pierwszego z tych dwóch startów doszło o godzinie 06:20 CEST. Ten start nastąpił z półwyspu Mahia, położonej na Wyspie Północnej w Nowej Zelandii. Był to pierwszy start nowej rakiety Electron, którą skonstruowała firma Rocket Lab.
Rakieta Electron miała wynieść testowy ładunek o nazwie „It’s a Test” na orbitę pomiędzy 300 a 500 km. Początek lotu przebiegł prawidłowo, jednak ostatecznie rakieta nie dotarła do orbity, wskutek nieprawidłowej pracy drugiego stopnia. Kilka godzin po starcie firma Rocket Lab potwierdziła, że lot rakiety Electron nie zakończył się sukcesem.
Poniższe nagranie prezentuje zapis ze startu rakiety Electron.
Pierwszy start rakiety Electron – 25 maja 2017 / Credits –
KiwiSpace FoundationBył to drugi nieudany start rakiety orbitalnej w 2017 roku. Co ciekawe, pierwszy nieudany start w tym roku był także pierwszym lotem nowej konstrukcji. (...)
http://kosmonauta.net/2017/05/rakietowy-czwartek-25-05/The 55-foot-tall (17-meter) Electron rocket, made of black carbon composite materials, fired its nine first stage Rutherford engines in the final seconds of Thursday’s countdown. After a quick health check, computers commanded hold-down restraints to release the booster at 0420 GMT (12:20 a.m. EDT) from Launch Complex 1, Rocket Lab’s operations base on Mahia Peninsula on the eastern coast of New Zealand’s North Island. (...) The first stage engines were scheduled to switch off at T+plus 2 minutes, 30 seconds, followed by first stage separation around four seconds later. A single modified Rutherford engine on the Electron’s second stage was programmed to ignite for nearly five minutes to drive the launcher into an orbit between 186 miles (300 kilometers) and 310 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth.
But something went awry with the rocket before passing the speed required to reach orbit.(...)https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/05/25/maiden-flight-of-rocket-labs-small-satellite-launcher-reaches-space/Rocket Lab reaches space, but not orbit, on first Electron launchby Jeff Foust — May 25, 2017. Updated 12:20 p.m. Eastern
Rocket Lab's first Electron rocket lifts off from the company's launch site in New Zealand May 25. Credit: Rocket Lab video captureWASHINGTON — Rocket Lab, a U.S.-New Zealand company developing the Electron small launch vehicle, declared success on its first launch May 25, although the rocket failed to reach orbit.
In a statement, the company said the Electron lifted off from its private launch complex on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula at 12:20 a.m. Eastern (4:20 p.m. local time.) The rocket reached space on an apparent suborbital trajectory three minutes later.
“It was a great flight. We had a great first stage burn, stage separation, second stage ignition and fairing separation,” Rocket Lab Chief Executive Peter Beck said in a statement. “We didn’t quite reach orbit and we’ll be investigating why, however reaching space in our first test puts us in an incredibly strong position to accelerate the commercial phase of our program, deliver our customers to orbit and make space open for business.”
“We’re looking at all our data and trying to find the root cause” for failing to make it to orbit, Beck said in a phone interview a few hours after the launch. “Until we look at the data it’s really hard to say.”
Rocket Lab@RocketLab 25 maja 2017
# ItsaTest
https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status/867612663764762624Beck, in a media teleconference later May 25, offered few additional technical details about the launch, but said that the company was pleased with the mission overall. “We’re very, very happy with the vehicle’s performance,” he said. “On this first flight we’re well ahead of where we needed to be.”
Electron is a two-stage vehicle designed to place payloads weighing up to 150 kilograms into sun-synchronous orbit. The first stage is powered by nine Rutherford engines, using liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants, while the second stage uses a single modified Rutherford engine.
As designed, the Electron’s first stage fires for two and a half minutes before separating. The second stage then ignites for a burn lasting nearly five minutes, with payload fairing separation taking place a little more than three minutes after liftoff. The company didn’t disclose in its statement if the timing of those events for this launch matched that plan.
The launch carried only a test payload, including instrumentation to collect data on the launch environment. “It’ll probably take us a couple of months to work through the data,” he said in the interview, before performing another launch. That second Electron vehicle, he said, is already built and sitting in the company’s factory.
“There were a lot of firsts today: building the range and having all that infrastructure work, a great first stage burn,” he said. “We validated and ticked off an awful lot today.”
Rocket Lab is planning three test launches of the Electron before beginning commercial flights. Beck said in a May 23 interview that the company was considering flying some commercial payloads on those later test flights, depending on the performance of the vehicle and instrumentation needs.
Rocket Lab’s customers include a mix of government agencies and companies. NASA awarded the company a launch contract under its Venture Class Launch Services program in October 2015. Moon Express has a contract for multiple launches, with the goal of performing the first launch before the end of this year in order to meet the requirements of the $20 million Google Lunar X Prize. Planet and Spire, two companies operating constellations of cubesats, also have booked launches with the company.
This was the first orbital-class launch to take place from New Zealand. The launch was licensed by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration because the company is headquartered in the United States, although most of its operations are in New Zealand.
The launch site, and coordination with local officials to clear airspace and seas for the launch, worked as planned, but Beck said in the media teleconference it took a “huge effort” to get everything in place. “If anybody has ever contemplated building a launch range, I’d advise against it, because it’s certainly a lot more involved than even we, four years ago, thought it would be,” he said.
“We have learned so much through this test launch and will learn even more in the weeks to come,” Beck said in the statement. “It has been an incredible day and I’m immensely proud of our talented team.”
https://spacenews.com/rocket-lab-reaches-space-but-not-orbit-on-first-electron-launch/https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/05/rocket-labs-electron-inaugural-flight-new-zealand/http://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=2814.msg105143#msg105143http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/electron.htmIt's a Test
http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/its-a-test.htm
Wątek: Starty rakiet (II kwartał 2017 roku) (Przeczytany 67751 razy)