Rocket Lab is one step closer to joining SpaceX in the elite club of companies capable of reusing rocket boosters.
The private space firm is set to become the second satellite launch firm, after SpaceX, to reuse its rocket boosters.Rocket Lab has taken a key step toward its first-ever relaunch of one of its Electron rocket boosters.
On January 31, one of Rocket Lab’s Electron boosters launched four private satellites to low Earth orbit. The rocket’s first stage then performed a soft splashdown in the ocean and Rocket Lab retrieved the rocket. “Through an iterative development process, we have methodically perfected each step of Electron recovery while simultaneously continuing to increase our Electron production capacity and launch cadence. This is the exciting final piece of the puzzle before Electron goes reusable,” Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO, explained in a statement last week.
In its bid to make Electron reusable, Rocket Lab says it has greatly improved in a few key areas over the past few years. These include “honing the telemetry and tracking systems so the marine recovery team can locate the stage as soon as it splashes down” and “streamlining the process of collecting the stage from the water in less than an hour.”
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