NRO to Launch a Classified Payload From Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab is getting ready to launch its upcoming mission, Live & Let Fly, on Thursday, March 21st at the latest.
The Wallops Flight Facility at NASA will host Launch Complex 2 for the mission. Rocket Lab has launched HASTE, a suborbital version of Electron, from its Virginia pad before. This will be the company’s fourth launch overall.
The National Reconnaissance Office, which is using Rocket Lab’s U.S. launch pad for the first time, is the mission’s customer. The mission, designated NROL-123, will not be made public, but within days of launch, satellite watchers can typically locate the payloads and identify the orbits in which these covert payloads are positioned.
This will be the fourth launch of the year for Rocket Lab. The “Owl Night Long” project for Synspective was most recently introduced by the corporation on March 12. In September 2023, the business hopes to build on its recent achievements and celebrate its fifth consecutive flight following an incident during its “We Will Never Desert You” mission.
Rocket Lab has made 45 total attempts at launch, of which 41 have been successful. The business has bounced back from each setback and is currently well into its initial phase of recovery. Approaching the goal of reflying a whole electron for the first time, it has recovered several first stages and reflown its Rutherford engines multiple times.
Out of the 22 missions scheduled for 2024, Rocket Lab stated in its Q3 results that it will try recoveries at least nine times. Naturally, Rocket Lab has till next year to try to rectify this and recover additional first stages.
Rocket Lab is continuing development on its Neutron rocket, which will be able to carry far heavier payloads into orbit and is meant to be reusable starting with its maiden flight, even as it increases the frequency of its Electron launches. During the Q4 earnings call, CEO and Founder Peter Beck stated that the company’s goal was to finish the Stennis test stand by the end of March and test-fire the new Archimedes engine shortly after.
Beck added that if all tests proceed as planned, Neutron might be launched by the end of the year.
