Mission Reports

Rocket Lab used a helicopter to capture a spent Electron first stage booster and its parachute after launching satellites from New Zealand Monday, a significant step forward for the company’s rocket recovery and reuse program. The helicopter dropped the rocket a few seconds later.

Two Chinese rockets, including one launched from an ocean-going platform in the East China Sea, deployed seven optical Earth-imaging satellites in a pair of successful missions last week.

Russia fired a rocket into orbit Friday from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the first use of an Angara launcher for a satellite mission, 30 years after starting work on the program just after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Rocket Lab tried to catch an Electron booster with a helicopter Monday off the coast of New Zealand, following a launch at 6:49 p.m. EDT (2249 GMT) with 34 small commercial satellites. The mission marked the the first time Rocket Lab attempted to recover a booster in mid-air after launch, continuing the company’s rocket reuse initiative.

Rocket Lab called off the planned launch and recovery of an Electron booster Friday, preferring to wait for better wind and cloud cover conditions a few days from now. The next opportunity to launch the mission from New Zealand is Monday.

Two Russian cosmonauts unlocked the European Robotic Arm from its launch moorings on a spacewalk Thursday, allowing the manipulator to move around outside the International Space Station for the first time.