Rocket Lab launched a rocket on the moon on Tuesday, after a series of minor delays.
The Electron rocket took off from a base on the Mahia Peninsula near Gisborne, as scheduled at 9:55 pm.
Rocket Lab said it is one of the smallest orbital rockets that attempt to launch a spacecraft into lunar orbit prior to launch.
“The perfect electron launch!” Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck tweeted Tuesday. “Moon photons are in low earth orbit.”
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In the Capstone mission, a rocket puts a small satellite into orbit around the Moon and orbits towards NASA. This hopes that the US space agency will be a step towards the later launch of the manned lunar space station and further missions to the moon and, in some cases, Mars. ..
The launches of the Electron rocket and Photon spacecraft, which carry the Capstone satellite on a three-and-a-half-month journey to the Moon, have been delayed several times since May 31, including software updates.
The company said the final delay from Monday night would be to enable a “final system check.”
Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck said earlier this month that the “Māhia to Moon Launch” would be a historic moment.
“This is a mission that every New Zealander can and should be proud of. We go to the moon, so few countries can say that.”
If the rest of the mission is successful, the Capstone CubeSat satellite (about the size of a microwave oven) will first follow a new path around the moon, sending back important information for at least six months.
“It’s in equilibrium. Calm. Balance,” NASA wrote on its website. “This Pathfinding CubeSat can actually kick back and rest in the gravitational sweet spot of the universe, where the gravitational pulls from the Earth and the Moon interact to allow for a nearly stable orbit.”
Ultimately, NASA plans to place a space station called a gateway in orbit. From the orbital path, astronauts can descend to the moon as part of the Artemis program.
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The total cost of the mission is approximately US $ 32.7 million.
For satellite missions, NASA has partnered with Rocket Lab, which is owned and operated by Colorado-based Advanced Space.
The total cost of the mission was US $ 32.7 million.
It takes more than four months to put a 25kg satellite into orbit, and it takes three steps.
First, a small electron rocket from Rocket Lab launched from New Zealand. Just nine minutes later, a second stage called a photon separated and orbited the earth. For the next five days, Photon’s engine will ignite regularly and is scheduled to move its orbit further away from Earth.
Six days after launch, Photon’s engine will launch its final time, allowing it to escape Earth’s orbit and head for the Moon.
The photons then release the satellite. The satellite has its own small propulsion system, but it sails toward the Moon for four months, so it uses less energy and undergoes some planned orbital course modifications along the way.
The Ministry of Business Science and Innovation (MBIE) said on Monday that it helped promote separate research agreements between NASA and scholars at the University of Canterbury, the University of Auckland, and the University of New South Wales.
A team led by Associate Professor Stephen Weddel of the University of Canterbury will track Capstone and attempt to predict its orbital path from the Tekapo and Canberra Observatory.
According to Johnson, MBIE was involved because NASA wanted a relationship with the government in the research agreement, but was not involved in the funding arrangements.
He said NASA’s Artemis Moon program has a budget of about US $ 30 billion (New Zealand $ 47 billion).
“Hopefully this is the beginning of what could be a bigger collaboration.”
-The Associated Press