Welcome Back to Earth, Electron

Bill Pearl

RETURN TO SENDER – In an example of Long Beach’s emerging future in space-related enterprises, a New Zealand based firm specializing in small satellite launches – that chose Long Beach for its corporate headquarters – has successfully orbited 30 satellites in a single launch and used parachute technology to recover the launch rocket. The Nov. 19 launch by Rocket Lab, headquartered at 3881 McGowen St. in ELB’s Douglas Park, deployed the satellites to unique orbits using the firm’s “Electron” launch vehicle. Rocket Lab says the satellites will enable internet from space, test new methods of de-orbiting space debris and enable research into predicting earthquakes. Rocket Lab, founded in 2006 with its first orbital launch in Jan. 2018, sent its Electron rocket into space from New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula lifting off on Nov. 19 at 7:20 p.m. PST. The firm took a public relations risk by announcing that in addition to the multi-satellite launch it would also attempt to recover the first stage of its Electron rocket in what it called a “Return to Sender” launch, using a parachute system for a controlled water landing before collection by a recovery vessel. And it worked. 

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