Rocket Lab to return to launch pad
Rocket Lab says the failure of its latest launch won’t affect its plans to list in the United States, scheduled for next month.
Spokeswoman Morgan Bailey said it was grateful for continuing strong support from its customers.
Rocket Lab attempted to place two 60-kilogram commercial satellites into orbit on Saturday for regular customer BlackSky.
But the satellites were lost after something went wrong with the second-stage of its Electron rocket during its 19th orbital mission.
Live footage of the launch appeared to show the single Rutherford engine on the secondstage did not ignite properly.
Rocket Lab experienced its first satellite losses in July, when its 12th orbital mission also ended in a failure due to a fault with its second-stage. That fault was due to a defective connection that caused its engine to shut down.
The company had six successful launches between those failures.
Rocket Lab signed an agreement with BlackSky in March to launch nine relatively large satellites for the company on five separate missions this year – its largest deal to date.
BlackSky chief executive Brian O’Toole said in a statement on the US company’s website that it had additional satellites ready to deploy and more satellites on track to be delivered this year.
‘‘We will continue to execute on the expansion of our constellation and expect to remain on track to meet our business objectives,’’ he said.
Rocket Lab founder and chief executive Peter Beck described Saturday as ‘‘one of our toughest days’’.
‘‘Our team is resilient, and our top priority remains to safely and reliably return to flight for our customers. We will learn from this, and we will be back on the pad again,’’ he said.
‘‘We will learn from this.’’ Peter Beck Rocket Lab founder