Rocket Lab Electron

Electron is a two-stage, partially recoverable orbital launch vehicle developed by Rocket Lab, an American aerospace company with a wholly owned New Zealand subsidiary. Electron was developed to service the commercial small satellite launch market. Its Rutherford engines are the first electric-pump-fed engine to power an orbital-class rocket. Electron is often flown with a kickstage or Rocket Lab’s Photon spacecraft. Although the rocket is designed to be expendable, Rocket Lab has recovered the first stage twice and is working towards the capability of reusing the booster.

In December 2016, Electron completed flight qualification. The first rocket was launched on 25 May 2017, reaching space but not achieving orbit due to a glitch in communication equipment on the ground, due to it still being a test flight called “It’s a Test”. During its second flight on 21 January 2018, Electron reached orbit and deployed three CubeSats, in a mission called “Still Testing”.The first commercial launch of Electron, and the third launch overall, occurred on 11 November 2018, in a mission called “It’s Business Time”.

The Electron has flown 21 times since May 2017, with a total of 18 successes and 3 failures. The initial test flight, called “It’s a Test”, failed due to a glitch in communication equipment on the ground, but the follow-up missions, called “Still Testing”, “It’s Business Time” and “This One’s For Pickering”, delivered multiple small payloads to low Earth orbit. In August 2019, a mission named “Look Ma, No Hands” successfully delivered four satellites to orbit, and in October 2019, the mission named “As the Crow Flies” successfully launched from Mahia LC-1, deploying a small satellite and its kick stage into a 400 km parking orbit. In July 2020, the thirteenth Electron rocket launch failed with customer payloads onboard, the first failure after the maiden flight. In May 2021, the twentieth launch also failed.