Rocket Lab can launch booster recovery, with the goal of reusing SpaceX

The next mission of the leader of the small launch, Rocket Lab, will present his second attempt to retrieve an Electron rocket after takeoff, splashing it into the ocean.

The company is working to reuse its rockets, just as Elon Musk’s SpaceX is currently doing.

“Where we’re trying to get to, is to the point where we can literally catch this thing and then repeat it,” Peter Beck, CEO of Rocket Lab, told CNBC. “Throw, catch, repeat.”

The next mission, its twentieth to date, is scheduled to be launched in May from the company’s private facilities in New Zealand. The main objective of the mission is to deploy two satellites orbiting BlackSky.

Beck’s company wants to come backcabove the boosters so that it can be launched more frequently, while reducing the cost of each mission.

But Rocket Lab’s approach to retrieving its boosters is different from the SpaceX, which uses rocket engines to slow down during re-entry and deploy wide legs to land on large pads.

Rocket Lab, on the other hand, is testing a technology that Beck calls an “aero thermal decelerator,” using the atmosphere to brake the rocket. After reaching space, the Rocket Lab’s on-board computer guides the reinforcement to re-entry, where it travels up to eight times the speed of sound and is subjected to heat above 4,350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Then a parachute is deployed from the top of the reinforcement to slow it down and, like the first recovery in November, splash into the Pacific Ocean.

The overflow is expected to occur about 400 miles from the launch site, where a Rocket Lab ship will pull it out of the water. Beck said this is the second of three planned planned recoveries, before the company moves on to its full reuse plan: pulling the reinforcement with its sky parachute with a helicopter.

Rocket Lab is in the process of merging with Vector Acquisition, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), in a deal that values ​​the space company at $ 4.1 billion. The merger is expected to close in the second quarter, when Rocket Lab will be listed on the Nasdaq and shares of SPAC, which are currently listed under the VACQ marker, will be converted to RKLB as a combined company.

An SPAC is a parent company created to raise money through an initial public offering to merge with an existing private company and make it public.

Beck said the Electron reinforcement for this upcoming mission will feature a “reinforced heat shield,” as the heat shield from the previous recovery mission “received a real beating” during the intense re-entry.

Overall, rocket reinforcement “had a remarkable shape” and now the company “better understands the load” of the heat shield, he added.

Beck said there will be one more major upgrade before the third recovery mission.

External changes are minimal, he noted, with most updates affecting “the subtleties surrounding thermal load control and management” in the booster.

Rocket Lab’s goal is to “make as little renovation as possible” with the boosters it recovers, so it can turn them around quickly between launches. The company is reusing parts from the first Electron reinforcement it recovered, which is now “severely dismantled,” Beck said.

Although the reinforcement was done “a quick dip in salt water for a few hours,” he said the Rocket Lab has yet to find any lasting issues with the pieces it plans to reclassify and launch into other rockets.

Once the company completes all three trigger tests this year, it will move on to mid-air recovery attempts.

Rocket Lab showed that last year they were able to grab a booster with a helicopter, which Beck noted they did on the first try.

The Rocket Lab Electron rocket has carried more than 100 small satellites into orbit over the past two years. The company has also built a spacecraft manufacturing business.

Beck’s company has launch facilities in New Zealand and Virginia. The first launch of the Rocket Lab from the United States has been delayed by regulatory reviews and is not expected to be complete until later this year.

Additional launch facilities will be key, as Rocket Lab last year said it had 26 missions reserved for 2021. Having both facilities provides the company with up to 132 launch opportunities a year. .

Last November, Beck said Rocket Lab was building electron propellers in less than 30 days and told CNBC that the company has now gone down to 26 days, with the goal of getting rocket production every 18 days.

Rocket Lab also presented plans for a second larger rocket called the Neutron to lift more payloads than its current Electron rocket. The launch market is divided into three sections: small, medium and heavy lift. The neutron will be oriented to this middle section.

The neutron, which is expected to be launched in 2024 for the first time, will be 131 feet high and will be able to carry up to 8,000 kilograms to a low Earth orbit. Rocket Lab did not disclose how much Neutron is expected to cost per release.

The company expects Neutron to cost about $ 200 million to develop. Its first launch will come from NASA’s Wallops flight facility in Virginia. Rocket Lab plans to build a specific neutron factory in the region.

The neutron will also have a reusable reinforcement, but the new rocket will “land on an ocean platform” using a propulsive landing. Electron “was always designed to be really manufacturable rather than really reusable,” Beck said.

Musk, shortly after Rocket Lab unveiled its plan for Neutron, commented that the rocket “looks familiar,” but “is, after all, the right measure.” SpaceX conducted several short in-flight prototype tests while perfecting the landing of its Falcon 9 rocket, a route Beck is not sure the Rocket Lab will take.

“Whether or not we see the need to do hop testing is really to be determined, but our current baseline type doesn’t make us do it,” Beck said.