Rocket Lab accelerates next recovery mission

Rocket Lab USA announced it has accelerated its next recovery mission. The ‘We Love the Nightlife’ mission, scheduled for lift-off today, will now fly on a recovery-configured Electron rocket. For the first time, Rocket Lab will also launch a pre-flown Rutherford engine, a significant milestone in the program to evolve Electron into a reusable rocket. “This mission is a big step toward reusable Electron rockets,” said Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck. “The engines we’re bringing back from previous recovery missions are performing exceptionally well through requalification and acceptance testing, so we’re excited to send one on its second trip to space as one of the final steps before reflying an entire first stage. Once again our team has demonstrated impressive responsiveness by swapping vehicles matter of days, enabling us to get Capella to orbit on schedule, while giving us another opportunity to splash down and recover a new booster. With the production team pumping out a new Electron rocket every three weeks, we have the unique ability to shuffle stages around to maintain a rapid launch cadence.”