The HASTE uses the same Rutherford engines as Rocket Lab's Electron, but modifies the third stage to carry larger payloads and for suborbital deployment.
A pair of 6U science sats, originally slated to piggyback a ride to Mars with NASA’s Psyche asteroid probe, will instead launch aboard Blue Origin’s New Glenn.
It was Rocket Lab’s first from the Wallops Island facility, opening a new venue for the Electron rocket and marking a new beginning for the Virginia spaceport.
Rocket Lab is poised to conduct the first of two additional tests of Electron launch vehicles specially modified for reusability which, if successful, could pave the way for the first mid-air recovery of a booster for re-use as early as next year.
Rocket Lab will become a publicly traded company with $750 million in cash to develop a new medium-lift launcher, grow its end-to-end space business including through acquisitions, and continue to target U.S. government customers.
The Electron rocket’s kick stage that dispatched a small satellite into orbit for on Aug. 31 has become a free-flying demonstration of Rocket Lab’s Photon satellite platform, the company disclosed Sept. 3.
About 4 min. into its second-stage burn, the Electron rocket “experienced an issue that caused the complete loss of the vehicle and unfortunately the payloads,” Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said.