Space News: Rocket Lab launches smallsat rideshare mission
by Jeff Foust WASHINGTON — Rocket Lab launched six smallsats for a variety of commercial and government customers March 22 on a mission also intended to demonstrate the performance of its own smallsat bus. The company’s Electron rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 1 at Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand, at 6:30 p.m. Eastern. The rocket deployed its kick stage eight and a half minutes after liftoff and, after a 40-minute coast, fired its Curie engine for nearly two minutes. Four minutes later, it deployed five payloads into a 550-kilometer circular orbit inclined at 45 degrees. The kick stage performed two more firings of its Curie engine before releasing the sixth payload into a 450-kilometer orbit 1 hour and 49 minutes after liftoff. The largest payload on the launch was a Gen-2 satellite for satellite imaging company BlackSky, the seventh in that series of spacecraft that produce high-resolution imagery. It was the satellite deployed to the lower orbit. The launch also carried tw...
