Rocket Lab Recovers Electron booster Again

Credit: Rocket Lab

For the third time, Rocket Lab recovered an orbital rocket booster from space, being the second company to do this. This will happen on the "Love at First Insight", also known as Electron-22. Launch happened at 1:38 UTC on November 18, or 8:38 EST on November 17. Electron launched the eighth and ninth satellites of BlackSky's Gen-2 Earth-observation satellites. Two more missions for BlackSky are planned.

Rocket Lab plans to recover Electron boosters mid-air via helicopter in the future, but on this and the two previous recovery missions, the booster splashes down. The unique thing about this mission is that a helicopter was stationed around 200 nautical miles away from the rocket's descent to test tracking and data relay. If this test went well, the next Electron recovery will be via helicopter. Rocket Lab's next rocket, Neutron, will land on an off-shore platform.