NASA among companies to use ‘reusable’ rocket

Rocket Lab, USA, are helping seven satellites to achieve a sun synchronous orbit.

The satellites will be using Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket, and the company will be attempting to recover the first stage from the ocean following the launch in a step towards making Electron a reusable rocket.

Rocket Lab are helping three customers with their launches – NASA, Spire Global and Space Flight Laboratory (SFL).

The ‘Baby Come Back’ mission succesfully lifted off from the Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand on Tuesday 18 July.

NASA’s Starling mission comprises of spacecraft swarms – multiple spacecraft autonomously coordinating their activities on orbit – and the mission will be to test whether this technology works as expected.

Spire Global will launch two 3U satellites carrying global navigation satellite system radio occultation, which helps improve the accuracy of forecasts.

SFL are launching LEO 3, following the decommissioning of LEO 2.

Baby Come Back will be Rocket Lab’s seventh Electron launch of 2023, its 39th Electron launch overall, and the company’s second recovery mission this year.