Rocket Lab, which aims to launch satellites into space quickly and cheaply, said it only used a helicopter to catch part of a rocket in the air. But the rocket was thrown into the ocean soon after, having to be fished out of the water.
This mission, named “There and Back Again” took off at 18:50 local time.
The company’s communications consultant, Murielle Baker, after initially declaring success, entered the webcast of the company to acknowledge that the helicopter pilot released the rocket “at his discretion” after sensing a “different load characteristic” than he had been trained to during capture tests.
Still, Baker called the initial capture “a monumental step forward.”
“We witnessed a spectacular capture,” she said.
THE webcast showed the helicopter grabbing the rocket’s parachute about 15 minutes after launch, and applause erupted from mission control, but moments later a disappointed sigh could be heard and the transmission cut off.
“They released him after the hookup because they weren’t happy with the way [o helicóptero] was flying,” Peter Beck, CEO of Rocket Lab, said on Twitter.
“This requires extreme precision. Several key points need to line up perfectly to ensure a successful capture,” said Baker at the start of the webcast.
The Electron, Rocket Lab’s small rocket, which launched nearly two dozen successful missions ahead of Monday’s launch, has successfully completed its primary objective: it has deployed 34 satellite payloads to various commercial operators, raising the number total number of satellites launched by Electron in space to 146.
There 🚀and back again 🪂 pic.twitter.com/GEsOmpYKFh
— Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) May 2, 2022
After separating from the first stage’s thruster, Electron’s second stage continued to orbit to fulfill the satellite’s deployment as the thruster dropped back to Earth at nearly 13,000 kilometers per hour. Once close enough to the Earth’s surface, the thruster opened a parachute to slow its descent. A helicopter was waiting to attach the booster’s parachute with a hook.
Catching the rocket in the air is a big part of the Rocket Lab’s ultimate goal of reusable rockets.
Other companies have used reusable rockets as a way to make the space business more cost-effective.
In 2015, Blue Origin was the first company to land a reusable rocket on a platform. The company said the future of space tourism and people living on other planets would depend on reusable transportation, after sending founder Jeff Bezos into space. Elon Musk’s SpaceX uses reusable thrusters in its Falcon 9 rockets.
Rocket Lab, however, says it has other reasons to focus on reuse than just profit. “Our biggest problem is building rockets fast enough to serve all of our customers.” said Beck to CNN Business in 2019. Rocket Lab wants to launch satellite payloads more often – 50 times or more a year. This volume requires the reuse of rockets.
NASA has recovered used rocket boosters from the Atlantic Ocean after the launch of a space shuttle. Rocket Lab plans to use the helicopter technique to retrieve its thrusters. The company said the Electron is not big enough to carry the fuel supply needed for a vertical landing, and an ocean landing in salt water could cause corrosion and physical damage.
The custom Sikorsky S-92 helicopter, a large twin-engine helicopter commonly used for search and rescue and transport missions offshore of oil and gas, was used in Monday’s capture.
Following the successful capture of the booster, the company planned to take the machinery to an offshore recovery vessel before transporting it to the company’s production complex for evaluation. But ultimately, the rocket was launched into the ocean and recovered. Ocean landings aren’t ideal — seawater can cause corrosion, which is why Rocket Lab hopes to trap the thruster before it drops into the water.

The launch was delayed several times due to weather conditions. “For our first airborne helicopter capture, we want ideal weather conditions so we can focus on the capture,” Rocket Lab posted on Monday.
“Just as our weather tolerances for launch have increased over time, so will our tolerance for weather in the recovery zone. For this, however, we want to eliminate the worry about the weather so that we can just focus on capture and support operations.”
The California-based company also released a video showing a successful drill in the days leading up to launch, with a helicopter capturing a dummy propellant before it hit the ground.
Rocket Lab has already fished out ocean thrusters in three of Electron’s 25 previous missions. This was the first airborne capture attempt.
This isn’t the first time humans have tried to catch an object falling from space with aircraft. During the 1960s, the United States used planes equipped with long hooks to pick up film cans containing spy satellite images.
The Cold War-era technique was similar to the one devised by Rocket Lab: the film cartridge would drop to Earth from space and use parachutes to slow its fall so that planes could capture the information. NASA also attempted an airborne capture in 2004 of a capsule carrying samples of particles that flowed from the sun, but the helicopter recovery attempt failed when the capsule’s parachutes failed to open, causing it to crash into the Utah desert.
Since its birth in 2006, Rocket Lab has deployed satellites into orbit for clients including NASA, the US Space Force, the National Reconnaissance Office and Canon.
Source: CNN Brasil

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