Watch Rocket Lab launch satellite, catch booster with a helicopter today - Space.com

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Update for 12 p.m. ET: Rocket Lab is present targeting 1:27 p.m. EDT (1727 GMT) for today's motorboat of an Electron booster and its attempted booster betterment by helicopter. The livestream supra volition statesman astir 15 minutes earlier liftoff.

Rocket Lab volition motorboat a outer to orbit and effort to drawback a falling booster with a chopper connected Friday (Nov. 4), and you tin ticker the enactment live.

Rocket Lab plans to motorboat a ngo called "Catch Me If You Can" connected Friday from its New Zealand site, during a 75-minute model that opens astatine 1:27p.m. EDT (1727 GMT; 6:15 a.m. connected Nov. 4 section New Zealand time).

You tin ticker it unrecorded present astatine Space.com, courtesy of Rocket Lab, oregon directly via the company (opens successful caller tab). Coverage volition statesman 20 minutes earlier liftoff.

The main extremity Friday is to loft a probe outer for the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA) utilizing an Electron rocket, but astir viewers volition astir apt beryllium much funny successful a secondary nonsubjective — the betterment of the Electron's falling archetypal stage.

Rocket Lab aims to snatch the booster retired of the entity with a helicopter, a strategy designed to support the conveyance from getting dunked successful corrosive seawater and to assistance easiness its transportation backmost to terra firma for investigation and eventual reuse.

The 59-foot-tall (18 meters) Electron, a small-satellite launcher with 31 missions nether its loop to date, is presently a wholly expendable vehicle. Recovery and reuse of the archetypal signifier would let Rocket Lab to boost its formation complaint and trim costs, institution representatives person said.

Electron is excessively tiny to execute powered vertical landings, arsenic SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy boosters do; it doesn't person capable substance near implicit aft motorboat for specified maneuvers. So Rocket Lab decided to spell with the helicopter, which grabs ahold of Electron's parachute enactment with a hook arsenic the booster descends.

Rocket Lab has made immoderate advancement toward its reusability goal. For example, it has already performed 1 chopper recovery, connected a ngo successful May of this twelvemonth called "There And Back Again." (Rocket Lab likes to springiness its flights playful names, arsenic you whitethorn person noticed.)

During that May mission, the chopper — a Sikorsky S-92 — successfully snagged the Electron's but accidentally dropped it into the portion soon thereafter.

Rocket Lab fished the rocket retired of the oversea and hauled it backmost to enactment by boat. The institution analyzed the flown booster, past refurbished and tested 1 of its 9 Rutherford engines, with promising results.

"The refurbished motor passed each of the aforesaid rigorous acceptance tests we execute for each motorboat engine, including 200 seconds of motor occurrence and aggregate restarts," institution representatives wrote successful the property kit for "Catch Me If You Can," which you tin find here (opens successful caller tab). The tests showed that the motor produced afloat thrust and "performed to the aforesaid modular of a recently built Rutherford engine," they added.

Still, Rocket Lab would similar to support its boosters retired of the water. On "Catch Me If You Can," the institution aims to support the captured booster secured beneath the chopper for the full formation to its Auckland Production Complex.

The chopper drawback volition hap a small little than 19 minutes aft liftoff, if each goes according to program connected "Catch Me If You Can." The satellite, called MATS ("Mesospheric Airglow/Aerosol Tomography and Spectroscopy"), volition beryllium deployed astir 41 minutes later.

MATS "is the ground for the SNSA's subject ngo to analyse atmospheric waves and amended recognize however the precocious furniture of Earth's atmosphere interacts with upwind and upwind patterns person to the ground," Rocket Lab wrote successful the ngo property kit.

MATS was primitively expected to motorboat atop a Russian rocket, but the SNSA and its main contractor for the satellite, OHB Sweden AB, nixed that agreement (opens successful caller tab) aft the Russian penetration of Ukraine and rebooked connected an Electron.

Mike Wall is the writer of "Out There (opens successful caller tab)" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a publication astir the hunt for alien life. Follow him connected Twitter @michaeldwall (opens successful caller tab). Follow america connected Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens successful caller tab) or on Facebook (opens successful caller tab).

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Michael Wall is simply a Senior Space Writer with Space.com (opens successful caller tab) and joined the squad successful 2010. He chiefly covers exoplanets, spaceflight and subject space, but has been known to dabble successful the abstraction creation beat. His publication astir the hunt for alien life, "Out There," was published connected Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a subject writer, Michael worked arsenic a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. successful evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's grade from the University of Arizona, and a postgraduate certificate successful subject penning from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find retired what his latest task is, you tin travel Michael connected Twitter.

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