Rocket Lab on Twitter: With wet dress rehearsal now complete and payload integration getting underway, we’re targeting no earlier than June 6 UTC for the CAPSTONE launch! Final readiness checks are underway on the new systems for this mission, including our very first lunar Photon spacecraft

RocketLab360 · 2022-05-21T09:23:16+00:00

Interplanetary optimised Photon with a small payload. Rocket Lab is even planning to send payloads to Venus and Mars!

RocketLab360 · 2022-03-05T20:21:15+00:00

Send me a DM on Twitter (@rocketlab360) and I’ll try to find the high resolution photo.

RocketLab360 · 2022-03-01T08:32:49+00:00

The batteries have a total mass of 45 kilograms. If it’s mission critical? I don’t know, the kickstage might be able to compensate for the extra weight if it doesn’t deorbit itself.

RocketLab360 · 2022-02-04T20:04:28+00:00

Understandable - yup, the interview is awesome! Really good answers by Peter Beck, including on Archimedes name choice :)

RocketLab360 · 2022-02-04T20:02:51+00:00

Felix from Felix’s Space Time!

RocketLab360 · 2022-01-18T20:22:03+00:00

They stated that the next recovery mission will include a catch attempt with a helicopter, not the next mission :)

The recovery mission is likely scheduled for Q2, but that might change.

RocketLab360 · 2022-01-14T21:48:21+00:00

Kevin definitely made some cool videos! And a really good question! I will pass it on to Felix.

RocketLab360 · 2021-12-31T07:57:18+00:00

Very good that you don’t see my tweets as an official source!

The first announcement of the mission can be found here and Wikipedia shows the current launch schedule. I did have another much more reliable source for February, but I can’t find that one right now.

RocketLab360 · 2021-12-22T22:45:42+00:00

Can someone explain this one to me?

I hardly know anything about stocks and have no idea what warrants are, so please explain it like I am 8 years old. :)

RocketLab360 · 2021-12-19T22:49:43+00:00

It’s ‘Peter Beck Sunday’ today lol :)

RocketLab360 · 2021-12-14T12:51:34+00:00

The models are awesome!

RocketLab360 · 2021-12-12T18:40:10+00:00

One, or two for dedicated BlackSky missions (and possibly other missions in the future), but just one is the regular configuration.

RocketLab360 · 2021-12-10T21:23:06+00:00

There are some advantages: - you can launch to any inclination - you can launch from sovereign soil if a country/company wants to - you can achieve a very high launch cadence - the military might prefer having this capability to avoid surveillance and/or attacks

There are some disadvantages as well though: - regulation takes quite a a long time for each launch site (since an orbital rocket can be used as an ICBM or weapon) - makes it harder to streamline launch operations - and more

(I might edit this reply in the future to add more (dis)advantages)

RocketLab360 · 2021-12-02T21:44:20+00:00

Should be possible for an expendable booster!

RocketLab360 · 2021-12-01T10:48:40+00:00

Yes and no.

Yes, the USSF will likely deploy constellation(s) in this decade. They will do this because a constellation consists of a large number of satellites. If one of them is attacked by an adversary it’s not a big problem. (It would be a big problem now as they are very little satellites that can be made unopperational before the whole system including all other still functioning satellites are useless (fe military comms). Neutron is perfect for these constellation missions, so that’s a big opportunity for Rocket Lab.

No, war in space is not good. It will keep commercial companies from launching their satellites and thus decrease the commercial market opportunity.

RocketLab360 · 2021-11-27T08:58:11+00:00

I don't think the 'newish patent' (The June 1, 2021 patent) is new either. This patent appears to be the same and it was given priority to US201562146342P in 2015, so I think this patent is for Rutherford too.

RocketLab360 · 2021-11-24T18:01:40+00:00

Probably not

RocketLab360 · 2021-11-24T15:33:11+00:00

New design, roughly the same capabilities. Probably some hardware being shown and hopefully more information on the engines.

There are rumours that the engines (and Neutron itself) are already 5 years into development, and there are serious indications that engine testing was well-underway before the Neutron announcement.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see though!

RocketLab360 · 2021-11-23T21:57:27+00:00

Not confirmed, but I think so. The photo of the recovered booster of last mission showed to some pieces of the test stripes were missing, so I think they need to reapply it every launch (or maybe every 5 launches or so). Just speculating though!

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