Update: Delayed due to time again as soon as I clicked post. Come back on May 1!
We don’t usually give Mother Nature so much power in terms of launch time, but for our first attempt to catch a helicopter, we want to arrange the best possible conditions to give us the highest chance of a successful catch. Over time, we will narrow these boundaries
– Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) April 29, 2022
Rocket Lab will take a picture that makes history today with its attempt to capture the spent accelerator in the air by helicopter. This (mostly) unprecedented technique is clearly the safest and most effective the company can come up with, and it will be the first full-scale operation to capture the first phase of the round trip mission before it explodes. . You can watch it live below this afternoon.
Don’t worry, it’s not just a helicopter-mounted catching glove for the first stage to collide at top speed; have a little more common sense than that.
The booster will do its job of removing the upper stage and payload from the lower atmosphere, then detach and fall in a generally predictable way, and at some point will deploy a parachute – not too high or too far. Once its location and speed are confirmed, a nearby special helicopter will take off at its location.
Once he has the floating amplifier in sight, he will move to catch it by grabbing something like a handle that should float just above the thing itself. We are not sure what exactly the current mechanism is, as this is the first time that the full setup will be publicly deployed.
The company has already proven that it is working with a test item and a different helicopter back in 2020, but they have never filmed a real first stage of launch – without a doubt the logistics are a bit more complicated, although in the end skyhook or as they call it They may not have changed much. “Several important stages need to be arranged perfectly to ensure successful shooting,” reads the mission description, so don’t be surprised if there is a last-minute cancellation.
Image Credits: Rocket Lab
The Sikorsky S-92 heavy-duty helicopter will have to have just under a thousand kilograms of spare elevator, which actually looks pretty light considering. Evidence of the focus on weight and efficiency in the Electron launch vehicle is that the bird could probably grab a few of them before it is too heavy to fly.
The mission itself, called (as you no doubt know) the original title of Bilbo Baggins’ story of his journey in The Hobbit, will launch 34 satellites into orbit for various clients: Alba Orbital, Astrix Astronautics, Aurora Propulsion Technologies, E-Space and Unseenlabs.
The start-up window opens around 10:35 am local time in New Zealand (ie tomorrow for them) or 3:25 pm (today) PDT. The stream below will start about 20 minutes before that.
Rocket Lab notes that “We will try to show live footage of the helicopter shooting during this mission, but we expect video loss due to the helicopter’s remote location during the shooting attempt.” While this is true, it’s also convenient (as SpaceX often demonstrates) if things don’t go exactly as planned. But here we hope that the flight and the shooting went well.
Add Comment