I dunno, but Electron is basically a stepping stone toward neutron for them, and that means land-based re-use/recovery. The helicopter stuff was always a bit of an interim 'complex solution to a simple problem.'Ag_of_08 said:
Have yall seen rocketlab saying they're likely going to drop air capture and move to water recoveries? Traditionally, companies have thrown recoveries from saltwater out, but that seems to be changing, even NASA is allowing the dragon reuse. Is it a materials change, or are we just getting better/faster at the recovery efforts?
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With a block upgrade to the Electron booster, recovery was made possible and attempted last year with near success. Still, the booster ended up dropping into the ocean after the pilot released it due to safety concerns. The second recovery attempt ended up happening via the ocean too, due to a temporary loss in telemetry from the booster. Both times Rocket Lab has been able to recover the booster from the ocean in a more than satisfactory state.
This has led the company to contemplate if dealing with air recovery is worth the investment and stick to water recovery like the previous attempts. Beck said in an earnings call this week that "Electron survived an ocean recovery in remarkably good condition, and in a lot of cases its components actually pass requalification for flight."
The company also mentioned on the call that its next recovery attempt will be a water recovery now that more waterproofing has been added to the rocket. This might become the norm for Rocket Lab as it seems to be working out just fine and it means more Electron launches will have the ability to be recoverable.
So, in the end, it's a win for Rocket Lab, with more reusable rockets and no need to operate by the constraints of a helicopter during launch. So while it's sad to think we might never get to see an Electron handing from the underside of a helicopter, it is a win for the space industry, opening up more Rocket Lab launch opportunities.
Not a Bot said:
"Violation of launch commit criteria" at T - 0.5s.
Assessing ability to try again today. Sounds unlikely but they are going to try.
Mathguy64 said:
Scrub again at T-0:45. These are all automated scrubs. You have to wonder if they have software issues in their control programming.
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We're getting close to our first orbital attempt with Starship. Hopefully in the next month or so we'll have our first attempt. I'm not saying it will get to orbit, but I am guaranteeing excitement.
BREAKING🚨: Something Just Crashed Into The Moon And Astronomers Captured It https://t.co/WBl9wsMEdk
— Amazing Astronomy (@MAstronomers) March 13, 2023
The OLM is like the opening scene from Flashdance right now. All through the night modifications going on, now Booster 7 is out of the way.https://t.co/e3xbqPo4OD pic.twitter.com/K6OHkaFnKl
— Chris Bergin - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) March 14, 2023
Good morning. Just found this was going on NASA Video - the Artemis I post flight update. Preps for Artemis II continue. Mobile launcher took more damage than thought, looking at a couple of anomalies also. #SLS pic.twitter.com/9I6ifc5UOe
— Justin Davenport (@Bubbinski) March 7, 2023
We need Starship to launch and buy down technical risk for prop transfer. We have contract milestones with SpaceX to buy down risk. Several flights to buy down risk for prop transfer.
— Justin Davenport (@Bubbinski) March 7, 2023
