Rocket Lab

[George K]

Probably never heard of it, have you?

This is an Aussie satellite company with a focus on small commercial satellite deployment. They've had a few successful missions so far, but yesterday, the mission was a bit different.

After separation of the first stage, the stage fell back to Earth. At the appropriate altitude, it deployed a parachute, and an awaiting helicopter snagged it, and delivered it to an awaiting ship for re-use.

https://gizmodo.com/watch-live-rocket-lab-helicopter-rocket-catch-1848860575

A totally different approach from SpaceX, but it's nice to see reusability becoming more common. I think SpaceX has reused one of their boosters 6-8 times.

This is from a test flight from RocketLab.

If you have an hour and a half...

Link to video

You can't see the catch, by the way.

[Jolly]

Good on them! I agree, anything to lower costs and hopefully speed exploration and space commerce is a good thing.