Udany start Electrona 11.11. o 03:50 z Onenui Station wystrzelona została RN Electron/Curie, która wyniosła w T+52' 45" na orbitę
o parametrach: hp=500 km, ha=500 km, i=85° satelity: CICERO, dwa Lemur-2, IRVINE01, NABEO i dwa Proxima.
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/n181101.htm#05
Drugi udany lot Electrona (11.11.2018) BY MICHAŁ MOROZ ON 14 LISTOPADA 2018
Rocket Lab przeprowadziła drugi udany lot rakiety Electron. Była to pierwsza operacyjna misja nowej rakiety nowozelandzkiej spółki.
Lot Electrona rozpoczął się 11 listopada o godzinie 4:50 CET. W 52 minuty i 45 sekund po starcie na kołowej orbicie na wysokości 500 kilometrów i nachyleniu 85 stopni umieszczonych zostało sześć satelitów: CICERO 10, 2x Lemur-2, IRVINE01, NABEO oraz 2x Proxima.
CICERO numer 10 wchodzi wkład konstelacji składającej się z 24 satelitów, wykonującej pomiary atmosfery ziemskiej przy pomocy zjawisk okultacji radiowej GNSS oraz reflektometrii. Operatorem konstelacji jest spółka GeoOptics Inc.
Dwa satelity Lemur-2 (oznaczone numerami 82 i 83) należą do spółki Spire, która również wykonuje pomiary przy pomocy okultacji radiowej GNSS. Satelity Lemur śledzą również ruch morski przy pomocy sygnału AIS.
IRVINE01 to szkolny CubeSat 1U zbudowany przez uczniów szkół średnich ze wsparciem grup akademickich oraz przemysłu. Budowa satelity ma na celu nauczyć przyszłych inżynierów pracy przy większych projektach kosmicznych.
NABEO to bawarski ładunek, który pozostanie przymocowany do górnego stopnia rakiety. Przetestuje on użycie żagla słonecznego na potrzeby deorbitacyjne.
Satelity Proxima to dwa demonstratory przyszłej konstelacji Centauri, mającej oferować usługi komunikacyjne dla sprzętu podłączonego do Internetu Rzeczy.
Ponieważ był to pierwszy operacyjny lot dla spółki, to otrzymał on nazwę It’s Business Time (czas robić interesy). Wcześniejsze loty oznaczony były jako It’s a Test (to tylko test), oraz Still Testing (testujemy dalej). Dopiero drugi lot testowy był udany.
Cele firmy Rocket LabCelem spółki jest obsługa rosnącego rynku małych satelitów. Rakieta Electron w jednym locie będzie mogła wynieść ładunek o masie do 150 kg na orbitę synchronizowaną słonecznie (SSO) o wysokości 500 km. Przy obecnie realizowanych lotach może być możliwe wyniesienie kilkudziesięciu najmniejszych satelitów taką rakietą.
Spółka otrzymała również szereg inwestycji. Ostatnia Runda D zakończyła się pozyskaniem łącznie 148 mln dolarów kapitału, przy wycenie spółki na ponad 1 mld dolarów. Nieznane są wartości uzbieranego kapitału w Rundzie B (2015 rok) oraz Rundzie C.
Uzyskany kapitał przeznaczony zostanie na zwiększenie mocy produkcyjnej przy rakiecie Electron. W nowej siedzibie głównej firmy w Huntington Beach (Kalifornia, USA) zbudowana została hala montażowa, w której składane będą silniki rakiety Electron oraz systemy elektroniczne.
Same rakiety będą dalej montowane w Nowej Zelandii, chociaż nie wyklucza się, że w przyszłości na potrzeby realizacji startów z portów kosmicznych w Stanach Zjednoczonych, rakiety Electron będą składane również w Kalifornii. Rocket Lab ma przeprowadzać loty kosmiczne również
z nowego kosmodromu budowanego w Szkocji.
(PFA, XL)
https://kosmonauta.net/2018/11/drugi-udany-lot-electrona-11-11-2018/http://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=2210.msg124402#msg124402Rocket Lab performs first commercial launchby Jeff Foust — November 10, 2018. Updated 9:20 a.m. Eastern Nov. 11 with post-launch statement.
Rocket Lab's Electron rocket lifts off from its New Zealand launch site on the "It's Business Time" mission. Credit: Rocket LabWASHINGTON — Rocket Lab successfully launched its Electron rocket Nov. 10 on a long-delayed first commercial mission for the small launch vehicle.
The Electron lifted off from the company’s Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula at 10:50 p.m. Eastern (4:50 p.m. local time Nov. 11) after a trouble-free countdown. The two-stage rocket released an upper stage, called Curie, into orbit nine minutes after liftoff.
Curie ignited its engines 51 minutes after liftoff to go into a circular 500-kilometer orbit at an inclination of 85 degrees. Three minutes later it released its payload of six small satellites.
“We’re thrilled to be leading the small satellite launch industry by reaching orbit a second time and deploying more payloads,” Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab, said in a post-launch statement. “The team carried out a flawless flight with incredibly precise orbital insertion.”
Those satellites included two Lemur-2 cubesats for Spire, which operates a constellation of such spacecraft to collect weather data as well as track vessels and aircraft. The Cicero-10 small satellite built by Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems for weather satellite constellation company GeoOptics was also on the launch, as was IRVINE01, a cubesat built by high school students in Southern California. IRVINE01 features an electric propulsion system developed by Accion Systems, marking the first flight of that company’s technology.
Fleet, an Australian company developing a constellation of smallsats for Internet of Things services,
added two 1.5-unit Proxima cubesats to the mission in October. The satellites are the first to be launched by the company, ahead of larger 3-unit cubesats that are part of a SpaceX Falcon 9 dedicated rideshare mission scheduled to launch later in November.
An additional payload, called NABEO and developed by High Performance Space Structure Systems GmBH, will remain attached to Curie. It will deploy a sail after the release of the other satellites to test its use as a means of deorbiting satellites. That payload was installed in cooperation with Ecliptic Enterprises Corporation, which announced an agreement with Rocket Lab in August to arrange similar hosted payloads on future Electron missions.
The launch was the third mission for the Electron, and the first since a January test flight that was the first to reach orbit. This mission, dubbed “It’s Business Time” by Rocket Lab, marked the beginning of routine commercial operations.
That mission was originally scheduled for launch in April but postponed because of a motor controller problem in one of the rocket’s first stage engines. The company corrected the problem and rescheduled the launch for late June, only to have the problem reappear.
In an August interview, Beck
said the company decided to make changes to the design of the controller to address the problem. “We made the decision to bite the bullet,” he said then. “We’ll go in there and make some changes to the hardware, some components of the motor controller.”
With this success the company plans to step up the pace of launches. Rocket Lab’s next Electron mission is expected to take place in December, carrying a collection of cubesats from NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative under a contract awarded by NASA’s Venture Class Launch Services program in 2015. That launch will take place “within a few weeks,” Beck said in the statememt.
https://spacenews.com/rocket-lab-performs-first-commercial-launch/Rocket Lab delivers seven payloads to orbit, plans next launch in DecemberNovember 11, 2018 Stephen Clark
Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket lifts off Sunday from Launch Complex 1 on Mahia Peninsula, located on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. Credit: Kieran Fanning & Sam TomsRocket Lab’s Electron booster launched six small satellites and a drag sail demonstrator to orbit Sunday from New Zealand, a success on the company’s first commercial mission that officials said should pave the way for a launch carrying NASA CubeSats next month and up to 16 flights of the light-class rocket next year. (...)
Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO, said the Electron rocket’s orbital accuracy was “exquisite” on Sunday’s mission, setting the stage for another Electron launch in December carrying around a dozen scientific and research CubeSats sponsored by NASA and developed at U.S. institutions and universities.
The launch window for the next Electron flight is currently expected to open around Dec. 10 and extend to Dec. 18, according to two sources with payloads flying on the NASA-funded mission.
Sunday’s launch was the third flight of Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket, following a pair of test flights in May 2017 and in January the company named “It’s a Test” and “Still Testing.” Last year’s inaugural Electron mission fell short of orbit, but the Electron launch in January delivered several small spacecraft to orbit, including a geodesic sphere dubbed “Humanity Star” covered in reflective panels designed to make it visible from Earth.
The Electron rocket is capable of placing up to 330 pounds (150 kilograms) of payload in a polar orbit around 310 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth. The rocket’s capacity to a lower-altitude orbit is up to 500 pounds (225 kilograms).
Founded in New Zealand and headquartered in the United States, Rocket Lab says it can launch an Electron rocket for $5.7 million per flight, offering small satellite owners a more affordable, dedicated ride to orbit than larger, more expensive rockets, which often launch large clusters of smallsats at a time.
The success of the January launch gave Rocket Lab officials confidence to press ahead with the company’s first operational flight, which was named “It’s Business Time.”
Rocket Lab planned to launch the “It’s Business Time” mission in April, but engineers discovered a problem with a motor controller during a fueling test. The controller woes continued during a launch attempt in June, and Rocket Lab stood down from the launch campaign to resolve the issue. (...)
Two the satellites launched on the Electron rocket Sunday are owned by Spire Global, a San Francisco-based company which builds and operates a fleet of CubeSats collecting weather data and tracking maritime traffic. The Lemur-2 satellites are about the size of a shoebox, and also carry instrumentation to track aircraft in flight.
Another California-based company, GeoOptics, also launched a small satellite for its own commercial weather monitoring constellation, which monitors GPS navigation signals passed through the atmosphere to measure temperature and moisture profiles. The GeoOptics CICERO 10 spacecraft was the biggest of the bunch launched Sunday, weighing in at around 22 pounds (10 kilograms).
A CubeSat named IRVINE01 built by Southern California high school students also lifted off on the Electron rocket.
Fleet Space Technologies, an Australian company with plans to build a network of tiny tracking and data relay satellites designed to connect with devices in remote locations on Earth, also launched its first two test CubeSats on Sunday’s mission — named Proxima 1 and 2.
A German-built payload from High Performance Space Structure Systems also rode into orbit Sunday to test an aerodynamic drag sail that could be used to de-orbit future satellites and help clear space junk out of orbit. The drag sail was to remain attached to the Curie kick stage and unfurl after the separation of the other satellites.
A model of the drag sail to be demonstrated on the NABEO tech demo payload. Credit: Rocket Lab(...) “Our goal by the end of next year is to be launching once every two weeks, and as we move into 2020, launching once a week,” Beck said. “We’re tracking a pretty big pipeline of customers, and we’ve been very fortunate that people have put their trust in us.” (...)
https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/11/11/rocket-lab-delivers-seven-payloads-to-orbit-plans-next-launch-in-december/First deployed from the Curie kick stage was the IRVINE01 CubeSat built by students in Southern California, followed by two ship-tracking and weather data collection craft for Spire Global, two data relay satellites from Fleet Space Technologies, and the CICERO 10 commercial weather satellite for GeoOptics.
The German-built NABEO drag sail will remain on the Curie kick stage and is scheduled to unfurl in around one hour, Rocket Lab says.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/11/10/rocket-lab-its-business-time-mission-status-center/https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/10/22/rocket-lab-breaks-ground-on-new-virginia-launch-pad/https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/10/31/rocket-lab-sets-new-target-date-for-first-operational-launch/https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/11/rocketlab-operational-electron-launch-five-payload/https://spacenews.com/rocket-lab-performs-first-commercial-launch/https://www.rocketlabusa.com/news/updates/https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/cicero.htmhttps://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/lemur-2.htmhttps://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/proxima-1.htmhttps://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/irvine-01.htmhttps://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/nabeo.htm
Wątek: Starty rakiet (IV kwartał 2018 roku) (Przeczytany 99395 razy)