Using a helicopter to catch a falling rocket is such a complex task that Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck likens it to a “supersonic ballet.”
Rocket Lab yesterday partially pulled off the feat, as it pushes to make its small Electron rockets reusable.
However, after briefly catching the spent rocket, a helicopter crew was quickly forced to let it go again for safety reasons, and it fell into the Pacific Ocean where it was collected by a waiting boat.
Photo: Rocket Lab via AP
The California-based company regularly launches 18m rockets from the remote Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand to deliver satellites into space.
The Electron rocket was launched yesterday morning and sent 34 satellites into orbit before the main booster section began falling to Earth. Its descent was slowed to about 10m per second by a parachute.
That is when the helicopter crew sprang into action, dangling a long line with a hook below the helicopter to snag the booster’s parachute lines. The crew caught the rocket, but the load on the helicopter exceeded the parameters from tests and simulations, so they jettisoned it again.
Photo: Rocket Lab via AP
The roller-coaster of emotions was caught in a livestream of the event, with people at mission control cheering and clapping as the rocket was caught, only to let out a collective gasp and sigh about 20 seconds later.
Still, Beck hailed the mission as a success, saying that almost everything went to plan and that the unexpected load issue was a tiny detail that would soon be fixed, a “nothing in the scheme of things.”
“They got a great catch. They just didn’t like the way the load was feeling,” Beck said of the helicopter crew in a conference call after the launch.
A detailed analysis should reveal the reasons for the discrepancy in the load characteristics, he said, adding that he still hoped the company could salvage some or all of the spent rocket booster, despite it getting dunked in salt water which they had hoped to avoid.
Rocket Lab named its latest mission “There And Back Again” — a reference to the movie trilogy The Hobbit, which was filmed in New Zealand.
The company described the brief midair capture at 1,980m by the Sikorsky S-92 helicopter as a milestone.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was