Monday, March 25, 2019

Rocket Lab Pushes Off Sunday Launch, Will Try Again Wednesday

Huntington Beach-based Rocket Lab, a developer of rockets used for sending small satellites into orbit, delayed a launch on Sunday which had been intended to send a DARPA payload into orbit. The startup, which has already been successfully sending satellites into space from a launchpad in New Zealand, said that it delayed the flight due to a non-flight related issue with a video transmitter. Rocket Lab said the video transmitter is not an issue for the flight, but that launch without the video transmitter would mean it could not webcast its launch, so it has rescheduled its launch for no earlier than Tuesday at 22:30 UTC. The mission is the Radio Frequency Risk Reduction Deployment Demonstration (R3D2) launch for DARPA, which carries a prototype reflect array antenna designed to improve radio communications in small spacecraft.