Rocket launch puts NZ in space race

WELLINGTON, May 25, (AFP): A private New Zealand-based company joined the exclusive space-race club on Thursday with the successful launch of a Rocket Lab test craft named Electron.

The rocket blasted off from the company’s facility at Mahia, on the east coast of the North Island, to end three days of launch attempts aborted because of the weather.

“Made it to space. Team delighted. More to follow!” aerospace company Rocket Lab tweeted as New Zealand became the 11th country to launch into space.

It was the world’s first successful launch from a private site, and was seen as a further advancement in the move towards private enterprise carrying small satellites and other cargo towards the stars. “In the past, it’s been countries that go to space, not companies,” said Rocket Lab founder and chief executive Peter Beck.

“We’re one of a few companies to ever develop a rocket from scratch and we did it in under four years.

“We’ve worked tirelessly to get to this point. We’ve developed everything in house, built the world’s first private orbital launch range, and we’ve done it with a small team.”

However, while the rocket reached space, it did not reach orbit.

“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 programme, deliver our customers to orbit and make space open for business,” Beck added.

New Zealand Economic Development Minister Simon Bridges hailed the launch as the government set aside NZ$15 million (US$10.5 million) for the country’s space programme.

“New Zealand is now one of 11 countries able to launch satellites into space from their own territory and the first to launch from a fully private orbital launch range,” he said.

Beck said Rocket Lab was committed to making space accessible and at full production, expected to launch more than 50 times a year.

Rocket Lab’s commercial phase will see Electron fly already-signed customers including NASA, Spire, Planet, Moon Express and Spaceflight.

The launch is the first of three planned tests before Rocket Lab begins providing customers commercial satellite opportunities.

Beck

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Europe’s Schiaparelli spacecraft came very close to a successful landing on Mars last year, but engineers failed to realize how jarring the probe’s parachute descent could be, dooming the touchdown, a report released on Wednesday said.

Schiaparelli flew to Mars with the Trace Gas Orbiter, which is studying gases in the planet’s atmosphere from orbit. The lander crashed during an attempted touchdown on Oct. 19.

Its parachute worked as designed, but atmospheric forces at supersonic speed were not well understood, the report, commissioned by the European Space Agency, said.

“The software behaved the way it was supposed to,” David Parker, ESA head of robotic exploration said in an interview.

“It should have been anticipated that the (spacecraft) rotation could reach the maximum. The software could have been more robust had it been more cleverly designed.”

Miscommunication between contractors Thales Alenia Space and Honeywell contributed to the problem, Parker said, adding that the ESA took full responsibility.

The agency will apply the lessons learned for the follow-on ExoMars rover life-detection mission, scheduled to launch in 2020.

Contributing to Schiaparelli’s botched landing was the lack of a backup avionics system, a decision made to save money and meet a March 2016 launch date, the report said.