from Hacker News

Rocket Lab has successfully launched Electron into orbit

by olliepop on 5/25/17, 4:40 AM with 4 comments

  • by disordinary on 5/25/17, 5:55 AM

    This shows you that you can achieve even if you're based on an isolated island on the other side of the world from most established technology and capital markets.

    I always thought launches had to be close to the equator though, hence Europe launches from Guiana, the US from Florida, Russia from Kazakhstan, etc. so I wonder why they're doing it from the NZ mainland and not an island further north.

    Their original plan was to do it from Canterbury which is even further south.

  • by gnat on 5/25/17, 6:48 AM

    Not into orbit. https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/rocket-lab-counts-down-first-t...

    “It was a great flight. We had a great first stage burn, stage separation, second stage ignition and fairing separation. We didn’t quite reach orbit and we’ll be investigating why, however reaching space in our first test puts us in an incredibly strong position to accelerate the commercial phase of our programme, deliver our customers to orbit and make space open for business,” says Beck.