dv said:
Meanwhile the NZ space launch industry is going alright.
They’ve had 9 successful commercial launches out of 9 so far at Mahia Launch Complex. Most of these have been launches of multiple small satellites, for communications companies, universities, DARPA, NASA, and other agencies. All have these have used the Electron rocket engine designed by Rocket Labs.
All being well, there will be monthly launches from Mahia this year.
To date, all launches have been to various Low Earth Orbits, but this year there is one (and possibly two) lunar launches planned, for the Moon Express consortium.
Wow.
Clap clap clap clap clap clap.
Checking Wikipedia.
The Rocket Lab Rutherford is a liquid-propellant rocket engine designed by American-New Zealand aerospace company Rocket Lab and manufactured in California. It uses LOX and RP-1 as its propellants and is the first flight-ready engine to use the electric-pump feed cycle. The electric-pump-fed engine is a bipropellant rocket engine in which the fuel pumps are electrically powered, and so all of the input propellant is directly burned in the main combustion chamber, and none is diverted to drive the pumps. This differs from traditional rocket engine designs, in which the pumps are driven by a portion of the input propellants. Fuel LOX & RP-1.
(I wish I’d thought of electric fuel pumps. It doesn’t have to be very obvious to be too obvious for mollwollfumble).
It is used on the company’s own rocket, Electron. The Rutherford is used for both the first and second stage engine. The engine layout on the rocket is similar to the Falcon-9, with 9 engines arranged in a square. The rocket has a diameter of 1.2 metres, height 17 metres, and two to three stages.
That’s a good combination of height and diameter for a Low Earth Orbit rocket. Compare the Falcon 1 being 1.7 metre diameter and 21 metres high, and the Canadian rocket Black Brant XI which is 0.76 metre diameter and 17 metres high.
Mahia Launch Complex is a commercial spaceport located close to Ahuriri Point at the southern tip of Mahia Peninsula, on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. That’s at sea level. Higher altitude would be better. I suppose that was all they could afford, or get government approval for. At least being on the east coast means that failures would land at sea.