Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab has plans for a private mission to Venus in 2023. New Atlas spoke with the company’s CEO Peter Beck about the road ahead, his long-time fascination with our nearest planetary neighbor and the machinery that he plans to use to explore

Rocket Lab made a successful return to service by launching a customer’s satellite into orbit earlier this week, but that wasn’t the only cause for celebration, with the team also deploying its own Photon satellite as part of the same flight.

A booster failure in early July threatened to derail Rocket Lab's momentum, but the company appears to have taken the setback in its stride with a successful return to the launchpad today that saw it deliver a 100-kg satellite into orbit.

Rocket Lab experienced a notable hiccup in early July, when one of its Electron boosters was lost on its way to orbit, along with the seven satellites onboard. The company now claims to have pinpointed the source of the problem.

Rocket Lab has made some impressive gains lately as a relatively young space startup focused on launching small satellites to orbit, but the latest outing of its Electron booster hasn’t quite gone to plan, ending in the "safe loss" of the vehicle.

Rocket Lab is looking to join the rocket recycling party by collecting the first stage of its Electron launch vehicle in midair using a helicopter, a method that it has now successfully demonstrated over the open ocean in New Zealand.

Rocket Lab announced today at the International Astronautical Congress in Washinton DC that it is expanding its services to deliver small satellites and other payloads into medium, geostationary, and even lunar orbits as soon as late 2020.

SpaceX singlehandedly changed the game when it comes to rocket recycling, but it might soon have some company with competitor Rocket Lab today announcing a reusability program of its own.​

​​Following a year with mixed results, 2019 is shaping up as quite a success story for US space startup Rocket Lab. The company has backed up a successful satellite launch for DARPA in March with another for the US Air Force.

In another feather in the cap for the New Zealand-based startup, Rocket Lab has successfully pulled off its first launch for DARPA, delivering an experimental satellite into orbit that the agency hopes will open up new possibilities around radio communication.

​It hasn’t been an entirely smooth sailing so far for Rocket Lab, but the New Zealand-based startup is starting to turn some important heads in the space scene. The company has today announced its next launch will be used to lift a satellite into orbit for DARPA.

NASA's Venture Class Launch Services program aims to use a new breed of smaller rockets to let CubeSats ride in luxury on their own personal, purpose-built spacecraft. The agency has now carried out its very first launch as part of this endeavor.