Although Rocket Lab made a self-congratulatory announcement that it had successfully made it to space, this was just spin. Its public relations department was putting a brave face on the fact that the firm’s maiden (first) flight of its two-stage Electron rocket did not achieve orbit and so was a failure.
The launch, carrying an instrumented dummy payload called “Itsatest”, occurred at 0420 GMT on 25 May 2017 from the Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand. All seemed to go well initially, with a good burn from the first stage’s nine liquid oxygen/kerosene engines and a sound first stage separation. This was followed by a successful ignition of the second stage’s single Rutherford engine and discard of the fairing. However, it later became apparent that the rocket stage and attached dummy payload had not achieved orbit. An investigation of the cause of the failure has started.
Comment by David Todd: Rocket Lab has no reason to be ashamed. According to Seradata’s records, maiden flights of new rockets such as the Electron fail nearly 50 per cent of the time.
The maiden flight of the Electron rocket went well at the start but ended in failure. Courtesy: Rocket Lab
