Skip to main content

Watch Rocket Lab’s first launch of 2019 lift a DARPA experiment into orbit

Rocket Lab, the Kiwi operation working on breaking into the launch industry with small but frequent launches, has its first launch of the year today, due to take off in just a few minutes. Tune in below!

The company recently, after the numerous delays endemic to the launch industry, made its first real commercial launches, which spurred a $140 million investment. It is now working on increasing launch cadence and building enough rockets to do so.

Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck was onstage at Disrupt SF not long ago talking about the new space economy. I thought it was a great discussion. (But then, I was the moderator, so how could it not be?)

The client for today’s launch is DARPA, which has opted to use smaller launch providers for a series of experiments and deployments. Onboard the Electron rocket today is the “RF Risk Reduction Deployment Demonstration, or R3D2. It’s an experimental antenna made of “a tissue-thin Kapton membrane” that will deploy from its small package to a full 7 feet across once in orbit.

The earliest opportunities for the launch were well over a week ago, but in this business, delays are expected. But all the little warning lights are off and the weather is fine, so we should be seeing R3D2 heading skyward in a few minutes.

You can watch the whole thing live below. I’ll update the post if there are any major updates.



from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2I4FDzB
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Max Q: Psyche(d)

In this issue: SpaceX launches NASA asteroid mission, news from Relativity Space and more. © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/h6Kjrde via IFTTT
Post a Comment
Read more

Max Q: Anomalous

Hello and welcome back to Max Q! Last week wasn’t the most successful for spaceflight missions. We’ll get into that a bit more below. In this issue: First up, a botched launch from Virgin Orbit… …followed by one from ABL Space Systems News from Rocket Lab, World View and more Virgin Orbit’s botched launch highlights shaky financial future After Virgin Orbit’s launch failure last Monday, during which the mission experienced an  “anomaly” that prevented the rocket from reaching orbit, I went back over the company’s financials — and things aren’t looking good. For Virgin Orbit, this year has likely been completely turned on its head. The company was aiming for three launches this year, but everything will remain grounded until the cause of the anomaly has been identified and resolved. It’s unclear how long that will take, but likely at least three months. Add this delay to Virgin’s dwindling cash reserves and you have a foundation that’s suddenly much shakier than before. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

What’s Stripe’s deal?

Welcome to  The Interchange ! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up  here  so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. This will include everything from funding rounds to trends to an analysis of a particular space to hot takes on a particular company or phenomenon. There’s a lot of fintech news out there and it’s my job to stay on top of it — and make sense of it — so you can stay in the know. —  Mary Ann Stripe eyes exit, reportedly tried raising at a lower valuation The big news in fintech this week revolved around payments giant Stripe . On January 26, my Equity Podcast co-host and overall amazingly talented reporter Natasha Mascarenhas and I teamed up to write about how Stripe had set a 12-month deadline for itself to go public, either through a direct listing or by pursuin...
Post a Comment
Read more