Operating under a veil of secrecy pierced only by the ignition of the rocket’s engines, Rocket Lab launched the first suborbital Electron June 17.

Operating under a veil of secrecy pierced only by the ignition of the rocket’s engines, Rocket Lab launched the first suborbital variant of its Electron vehicle June 17.

The vehicle, called Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron (HASTE), lifted off from Launch Complex 2 at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia, at 9:24 p.m. Eastern. Rocket Lab declared the launch a success in a statement nearly an hour and a half after liftoff.

  • zhunk@beehaw.org
    1·
    1 year ago

    This is such a cool idea for finding another use for their Electron platform, especially given that the military sounds excited to pay them for it.

    Can anyone explain the purpose of these hypersonic tests? I’m assuming the payloads are still in a fairing, so what does this offer that a big centrifuge test wouldn’t? Is it sustained acceleration, vibration, and low pressure? Or is it more for testing things like communications and positioning with ground and orbital targets at hypersonic speeds?