NZ Rockets ..

[ZeroID]

I've been watching this company for a few years since even before their earlier Mercury Island launchings of what seemed to be oversized amateur hardware but looks like they had a plan all along. Quite stunning to say the least. :D

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11301045

Bit more info

http://www.rocketlabusa.com/

[xelasnave]

Wow
That must make you proud
Great stuff

[N1]

Finding a launch site in NZ shouldn't be too hard, as long as it blasts off on November 5! :P

[pluto]

It's a great looking concept, and a good idea as there's obviously a great market for ~100kg and/or cubesat LEO launchers, especially ones that aren't bound to the timescales nessesary for larger, more expensive launches :)

The stuff.co.nz article I read about it in this morning mentioned that they had completed one orbital launch previously, with a different rocket of course, but I can only seem to find info about sub-orbital launches they've conducted.

Just a case of stuff.co.nz getting confused? or have they actually done an orbital launch?
I think with all the reading around this subject I've done that I would have come across something as significant as Kiwis launching a satellite!

[ZeroID]

An Atea II if I remember correctly was orbital. They have not been blasting their trumpet very much even over here. Been quite a few launches from Mercury Island ( NE aspect for orbital stuff ) but no news. It's all been rather hush hush as they got to the 'big boy' stage.

No satelite on the orbital btw, just dummy payload and tracking electronics.

[gbeal]

Plus, everyone knows that the Kiwi is a flightless bird.
Gary

[pluto]

I would still call that a satellite :D

However I still can't find any reference to an orbital flight from NZ anywhere in my searches. The Atea II couldn't have acheived orbital velocity as, according to these pages, it's designed to lob a 25kg payload to a 250km apogee:
http://www.kiwispace.org.nz/display/PORTAL/Rocket+Lab
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/atea2.htm
Of course that's significantly less speed than is needed to achieve orbit.

Don't get me wrong, what they've done is awesome and if they manage to build and launch the new Electron rocket then that's even more awesome. It's a beautiful looking rocket, makes me want to re-skin KSP in all Carbon Fibre ;)

[deanm]

I understood that launch sites on or close to the equator are more energy efficient due to the Earth's rotational velocity (hence ESA doing Ariane/Soyuz launches from Kourou in South America, NASA at the Cape etc).

I would have thought NZ is a bit far South.

Polar orbit launches, however, are a different matter.

Dean

[pluto]

At the equator the ground is moving 1669km/h or 463m/s
I think they launch from 36 deg south so at that latitude the ground is moving 1350km/h or 375m/s
At their planned orbital altitude of 500km the orbital velocity is 7615m/s so the saving would be around 1% if they moved to the equator.

36 degrees is still a lot less than the 45 degrees latitude at which Baikonur lies and the Soviets/Russians didn't do too badly when it comes to spaceflight ;)

[deanm]

Fair enough & well said, Pluto.

Can't argue with real numbers!

Dean

[ZeroID]

Also where NZ is located is a good insertion location for angular orbits like ISS has. Low air traffic in the area is also useful plus failure path is over the empty lower Pacific. Safety First .. :thumbsup:

I'll see what I can confirm re the orbital note. I have some contacts that are a bit closer to the source. I used to do amateur rocketry till the neighbours complained about the test motor failure explosions in the back yard. :P

[ZeroID]

Dr Sandy Tirtey, vehicle team leader for this project is speaking at Auckland Astronomical Society next Monday night. He was the Technical Lead & Project Manager for the Scramspace I Scramjet free flight experiments in 2013.
I won't mention that he's an Aussie from University of Queensland ... Ooops !
I have a couple of questions I'd like to put to him .... :)

I'm taking Fri & Mon off, doing a bit of a Northland Drive so I won't be around to annoy you all. Long as I'm back in time for the meeting.

[pluto]

Excellent, that should be really interesting! :)

[ZeroID]

So that was the most noninformational informational meeting I have ever attended. ie he gave little away. He spoke and showed information mostly about the Australian based ScamSpace project, very little about RocketLab NZ.
Frustrating..
But .... to update.
(1) No, they have not orbitted anything yet but have attained 120km altitude repeatedly and fired over 80 successful launches. Saw some interesting videos of various tests.
(2) Sandy is Belgian, has worked on several incomplete Scram projects including the Australian one. All were killed due to either funding issues or in the Australian case, destruction of the test vehicle at launch.
(3) The cojoining factors in all projects is cost to launch. All projects he has worked had the ultimate target of making space affordable for smaller operators. Rocketlabs NZ is the first to be ready to acheive that.

I buttonholed him after and 'accused' him of not saying much about the NZ project. He laughed and agreed, showed a test firing of the Rutherford engine on video which was extremely impressive. ( It shifted the vid cam back about 6 meters and it was attached to some heavy metal ). He gave a hint when asked, that the name, Electron, had something to do with the new technology and thus the patents and secrecy on the project.
He wasn't giving much away.
But had a long chat with another interesting character about historical aircraft and technology. So a good night regardless.

My long weekend was excellent except for the the fact I had a full on head cold the whole time and it's still hanging around .... bleghh !
Few pix over on the weebly website (link below) if anyone is interested

[PeterEde]

Pretty cool. Pity Australia didn't push home it's location advantage

[pluto]

There were a few orbital launches and many sub-orbital launches from Woomera, though not with Australian designed/built rockets.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that Australia was the third country in the world to launch it's own satellite from it's own soil, I think using a Redstone.

[ZeroID]

Hmm, never heard of the Redstone launch, have to check. How long ago was that ?
The Scramspace launch was in Norway because Aust Govt refused launch permission in Nov 2013, he didn't elaborate why. Possibly because of the trajectory (straight down) not being over water.

UK was using WAC Corporals at Woomera IIRC but not sure about that.
More stuff to look up... :P
Better go google Woomera see what I can find.

OK, Black Knight\Blue Streak launch vehicles. Haven't heard those names in a long time. Last Satellite launch in 1971.
Lot of missile testing, Rapier, Bloodhound etc.

[pluto]

The Encyclopdeia Astronautica is even better than Google for these things:
http://www.astronautix.com/sites/woomera.htm

And I was mistaken, there were Australian designed rockets though only sub-orbital.

[PeterEde]

There was a US company (Kistler) setup in Woomera to start launches as recent as 15 years or less. But went broke I think.

Even Branson was considering Australia as a launch site for Starship

[ZeroID]

Cool, all fascinating stuff. I recently downloaded a free book on the X-15 another of my favourite 'planes'. Some very interesting data came out of that program as well.

[pluto]

Not to mention some extraordinary pilots too!
I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it would have been to fly those things at the speeds and altitudes they were operating at.