Rocket Labs “Electron” made its second successful and first commercial flight on November 11th, 2018, successfully carrying a compliment of small cubesats into orbit.
Let’s go over this one more time – it’s the 3rd flight ever of this launch vehicle, and it’s already making full commercial flights. Now that’s success!
Electron in flight. #ItsBusinessTime pic.twitter.com/X6n9wc6PXU
— Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) November 11, 2018
I talked back in January about how awesome I think the Electron rocket is – 3D printed components, electrically powered engines (including systems to jettison spent batteries to save weight, something so simple that is pretty awesome for reasons I can’t quite explain) and more. I just love the thing!
The world is waking up to a new normal. Rapid and reliable access to space is now a reality for small satellites. #ItsBusinessTime pic.twitter.com/jw3StIvYZV
— Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) November 11, 2018
I’ll spare details on the booster – those can be found in the wiki links below. Instead, let’s get right to the launch video, which for the average viewer will be one of the better ones – onboard cameras captured many of the best moments of the flight in awesome detail, and the views of the Earth as the booster rose are just incredible. Not that I’m saying every launch needs these views – far from it – I just feel they helped with this one where they were possible and planned for, especially for monitoring possible issues which, thankfully, didn’t come up.
Enjoy!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_(rocket)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_(rocket_engine)