2y ago

Rocket Lab's Electron rocket fails during Capella Space launch

spacenews.com

Electron fails during Capella Space launch

4 comments

Hopefully they can get get to a root cause, corrective actions, and return to flight pretty soon. They had a good launch success streak going and were hitting a pretty solid launch cadence, so this really stinks. Electron has been the best (practically the only?) smallsat launcher, and I'm looking forward to their bigger Neutron rocket, so I wish them the best.
Their stock dropping 20% this morning really reinforces my dislike for the stock market.
Really hoping Rocket Lab eventually catches up with, and passes SpaceX. Could use some more competition in reusable launchers. Who knows if Blue Origin ever gets more than a carnival ride off the ground.
Stoke Space might also be a dark horse coming for the reusable market. They've got a long way to go, but it's a very unique and interesting design they've got.
- I'm pretty excited for Neutron, but I'm more excited for Stoke.
  I love Neutron's attached fairing to make reuse easier. It's also awesome to see such an ambitious carbon fiber project. The 2nd stage isn't reusable, though, so I'm guessing they'll be competing for 2nd place, at the top of the "not SpaceX" market.
  Everything about the Stoke upper stage makes me happy. SpaceX did some work on Falcon 9 2nd stage reuse, but this is like if they hit a bong first then merged that with Starship development. It's so damn cool. AND meant to be fully reusable.
  
  Yeah, I want all of them to succeed. They're all innovating in their own ways. Cheaper access to space hopefully means cheaper access to space based resources and eventually manufacturing in space.
  Maybe we can get all the dirty industry off planet someday.