The
Long Beach, California-based company's
workhorse Electron rocket, an expendable launcher standing 40
feet (12 meters) tall, lifted off at 6 p.m. EST from its new
launch pad at the NASA-operated Wallops Flight Facility on
Wallops Island, Virginia.
The mission marked Rocket Lab's first outside its flagship
launchsite on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand, where the
company has carried out all 32 previous Electron missions since
the rocket's debut in 2017.
Rocket Lab secured an agreement to use the Launch Complex 2 site
in Virginia in 2018.
Tuesday's mission had been delayed several times, initially by
nearly a year over a lengthy certification review of Electron's
automated flight termination system, then a few more weeks due
to bad weather in Virginia.
The mission was otherwise routine for Rocket Lab, sending three
satellites toward orbit for radio-frequency analytics firm
Hawkeye 360.
The company confirmed at 7:34 p.m. that the Hawkeye satellites
were successfully deployed in orbit.
Rocket Lab's inaugural Virginia-based mission comes as U.S.
regulators adapt to a surge in private rocket launches, driven
primarily by Elon Musk's SpaceX. The uptick is expected to grow
as a handful of U.S. launch startups plan to loft their rockets
into space for the first time in 2023.
(Reporting by Joey RouletteEditing by Chris Reese and Sandra
Maler)
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