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A successful launch and payload deployment from Rocketlab.
22nd successful launch
3 failures
3 failures
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And Rocket Lab succeeded in snagging the booster in mid air! Impressive. Though the video from the helicopter didn’t appear to show the catch, but one could briefly see the booster below the copter.
Now let’s see if they can refurbish and reply the stage.
Now let’s see if they can refurbish and reply the stage.
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Rocket Lab launches smallsats, catches but drops booster
Rocket Lab declared success in its effort to catch an Electron booster in midair, even though the helicopter had to release the booster moments later.
spacenews.com
My guess is that the Rocket Lab helicopter did not have a belly camera looking straight down as the only view we saw was slightly off to the side. It appeared to be mounted at the top of an open side door on the copter. I was also surprised that there was no good view of the booster for more than a second or two.
It is possible that the copter pilot did have a camera view of the stage that was better than what the company made public.
SpaceX certainly took a different approach, publicly live-streaming their early booster landing attempts, which made for great entertainment.
Not bad. They did catch it. It looked pretty windy and the chute didn't collapse immediately like it did in the test runs. I expect the winds and the non-collapse of the chute was creating some unforeseen forces which the pilot, rightfully so, decided was too dangerous to struggle against. Lessons were learned and there will be more attempts that will certainly be successful in the future. I applaud Rocketlab for being the second company to go for reuse. I'm sure they will get there and then we'll see how much and how quickly they can reuse an orbital class booster.
EA did a good "play by play" on the launch and the catch attempt.
EA did a good "play by play" on the launch and the catch attempt.
Well, surely Peter Beck could “explain” specifically why the copter pilot decided to release the booster after snagging it but he choses not to at this time.
If the issue was weather related (e.g. winds as @Grendal commented on) of course SpaceX has to also consider the weather at the ASDS location before deciding whether or not to go for launch.
I thought they are going to make an attempt to capture the booster.
They announced that the NRO was against them trying on their launches. So they respected the NRO as the customer.
