Two Satellites Lost after Rocket Lab's Second-Stage Booster Fails to Reach Orbit

Space startup Rocket Lab 'lost a pair of satellites as the second stage of one of its Electron rockets failed to make it to orbit Saturday,' reports CNET:

After a successful liftoff from the company's New Zealand launch facility, something went wrong after the first stage booster separated from the smaller second stage carrying two satellites for Earth imaging company BlackSky. A live feed from the second stage showed that after it separated, it appeared to go into an uncontrolled tumble.

Commentators on the company's livestream reported that telemetry from the second stage had been lost and later the Rocket Lab Twitter feed confirmed the mission failure.

'An issue was experienced during today's launch, resulting in the loss of the mission,' the company tweeted. 'We are deeply sorry to our launch customers BlackSky and Spaceflight. The issue occurred shortly after stage two ignition...'

Rocket Lab reported that the booster made a successful parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific and a specially modified ship was en route to try to recover it.

'Rocket Lab has mostly been successful so far, with 17 of its missions reaching orbit,' writes Engadget. Or, as CNET puts it, 'This is the third failure out of 20 Rocket Lab launches and the second loss of mission in the past year.'

In a statement, Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said 'We will learn from this, and we'll be back on the pad again.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.