Rocket Lab preparing to return to flight by the end of the year

After suffering an inflight failure in September, Rocket Lab gave an update where it said it hopes to begin launches again from New Zealand with in Q4 of this year. An investigation is still underway to determine the fault of September’s launch.

Rocket Lab Q4 return to flight

In a press release on the company’s website, Rocket Lab announced that the FAA has given authorization for Electron launches to resume from LC-1 in New Zealand. However, Rocket Lab still has to finish its investigation into what went wrong before returning to flight.

On September 19, Rocket Lab attempted to launch Capella Space‘s next generation Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite into low Earth orbit. Electron’s second stage shutdown prematurely, resulting in the loss of the satellite. Rocket Lab has kept its rocket grounded since then pending an investigation.

This is the third inflight failure Electron has experienced, all three having to do with the second stage. Electron has successfully performed its job 36 times, so the rocket’s reliability and capability aren’t in question.

“After more than 40 launches, Electron is a proven, mature design with a well-established manufacturing process behind it, so we knew the fault was going to be something complex and extremely rare that hasn’t presented in testing or flight before,” said Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck.

In the statement Rocket Lab said the investigation should only last a few weeks and they hope to begin flying again this quarter. After previous failures, Rocket Lab has been rather quick to finding, solving, and getting back to the launch pad. I wouldn’t expect anything less, unless the problem isn’t too complex.

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Rare chance Rocket Lab hits double digit launches

Rocket Lab was on a roll this year with eight successful launches taking place so far this year. The hope was for the company to break the double digits milestone in 2023.

With November quickly approaching, hitting 10 successful flights by the end of the year may be difficult. Rocket Lab has already updated its estimated revenue projections for Q4 as one launch is planned to be pushed back into 2024.

Of course if they only get one launch off Rocket Lab would still have 10 launches to the year, but who wants the asterisk of only having nine successful missions?

The biggest question will be how long the investigation actually takes and how long until they develop a solution to the problem. In space, weeks can easily turn into months if the complexities are too high. Hopefully that doesn’t happen year and we’ll see the return to Electron launches soon.