WASHINGTON – A Rocket Lab Electron failed during the launch of the Capella space radar imaging satellite on September 19.
Electron lifted off at 2:55 a.m. Eastern Time from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand after about a 20-minute delay due to space weather conditions. Lift-off and ascent of the first stage appeared to go as expected, with “nominal” calls by controllers until stage separation.
However, live video of the second stage was lost shortly after separation, when the single Rutherford engine caught fire. Telemetry displayed on the webcast for several seconds after stage separation showed that the vehicle’s velocity had decreased, indicating some type of engine failure.
“At all stations, we have experienced an anomaly,” the launch director said about 45 seconds after stage separation. Rocket Lab soon ended the webcast without providing any additional information, but acknowledged that the mission was a failure.
This is the third failure for the Electron in a little over three years, the previous two failures involved upper stage problems. An Electron failed to reach orbit in July 2020 when the upper stage engine shut down prematurely, which the company attributed to faulty electrical connections. Another Electron launch failed in May 2021 when the upper stage engine shut down seconds after ignition. Rocket Lab said the failure was caused by problems with an igniter that corrupted the signal used for the stage’s thrust vector control system, causing the engine to shut down.
The failure raises new questions about the rocket’s reliability and the company’s ability to increase the vehicle’s launch rate. Rocket Lab had projected to fly 15 Electron missions this year, including flights of a suborbital version of the rocket called HASTE. It was the ninth Electron launch of the year and 41st overall, making the company a leader among Western operators of small launch vehicles.
The payload on the rocket was the second Acadia synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging satellite developed by Capella Space. The previous Electron launch was on August 23, launching the first Acadia satellite, part of a four-launch contract between Rocket Lab and Capella.
The first Acadia satellite is now in commercial operation, Capella Chief Executive Payam Banazadeh said during a panel discussion at World Satellite Business Week on Sept. 15. “The factory is loaded with these Acadia satellites,” he said, adding that more are planned to be launched in the coming quarters, including from Rocket Lab.
The Acadia satellites are larger than previous generations, weighing about 150 kilograms, he said, based on decreasing costs and increasing launch availability. “At some point it really didn’t make sense to be so small,” he said, adding that satellites are being increased in size to improve their performance. “Data quality matters more than launching more satellites, at least for the customers we are targeting.”
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Source: spacenews.com
