Electron failure during Capella’s space launch

WASHINGTON – A Rocket Lab Electron rocket failed during the launch of the Capella Space radar imaging satellite on September 19.

The Electron lifted off at 2:55 a.m. east from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand after a delay of about 20 minutes due to space weather conditions. The first stage’s takeoff and ascent process appears to proceed as expected, with “noun” calls by controllers until stage separation.

However, live video from the second stage was lost immediately after separation, when Rutherford’s only engine caught fire. Telemetry shown on the webcast for several seconds after the phase separated showed a decrease in the vehicle’s speed, indicating that the engine had failed in some way.

“We saw an anomaly at all stations,” the launch director said about 45 seconds after the stage separated. Rocket Lab quickly ended the webcast without providing any additional information, but admitted that the mission was a failure.

This is the third failure of the electron in just over three years, with the previous two failures involving problems in the upper stage. One of the Electrons in July 2020 failed to reach orbit when the upper stage engine shut down prematurely, which the company blamed on a faulty electrical connection. Another electron launch failed in May 2021 when the upper stage engine stopped working seconds after ignition. Rocket Lab said the failure was due to problems with the igniter that corrupted the signals used in the stage’s thrust vector control system, causing the engine to shut down.

The failure raises new questions about the missile’s reliability and the company’s ability to increase the vehicle’s launch rate. Rocket Lab expects to launch 15 cyber missions this year, including flights of a suborbital version of the rocket called HASTE. This was the ninth Electron launch of the year and the 41st^street Overall, making the company the leader among Western operators of small launch vehicles.

The payload on the rocket was Acadia’s second synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging satellite developed by Capella Space. The previous Electron launch on August 23 launched the first Acadia satellite, part of a four-way launch contract between Rocket Lab and Capella.

The first Acadia satellite is now entering commercial operations, Capella CEO Payam Banazadeh said during a panel discussion at World Satellite Business Week on September 15. It will be launched in the coming quarters, including with Rocket Lab.

The Acadia satellites are larger than previous generations, with a mass of about 150 kilograms, which he said is based on lower cost and increased launch possibility. “At some point, it didn’t make sense for satellites to be that small,” he said, which led to satellites becoming larger to improve their performance. “Data quality is much more important than launching more satellites, at least for the customers we are targeting.”

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