Rocket Lab rocket launch failed, two satellites lost

Rocket Lab failed to launch the Electron booster. It was launched on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand at 14:11 Moscow time on May 15 and was supposed to launch two Earth remote sensing satellites of the American company BlackSky into orbit.

Rocket Lab rocket launch failed, two satellites lost

The New Zealand launch marked the 20th Electron launch and marked the second failure of the Rocket Lab mission in less than a year. After two and a half minutes of flight, the second stage booster successfully separated from the first stage and shut down after a few seconds. Shortly thereafter, Mission Control lost communication with the booster.

Rocket Lab reported on the official Twitter page:

During today’s launch, there was a problem that resulted in the mission being interrupted. “

The company also planned to test a number of hardware upgrades that would improve Electron reuse. Rocket Lab is currently investigating the crash in conjunction with the US Federal Aviation Administration.

The last Electron outage occurred in July 2020, when seven satellites were lost after the early shutdown of the second stage. Since then, Rocket Lab has launched six successful Electron missions. In total, the company has completed 17 successful missions.

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