Rocket Lab Newsletter, January 2010

The past year has been both hectic and rewarding at Rocket Lab. We are very pleased with the success of Ātea-1's first launch and have appreciated the extensive support we have received. We'd like to give a special thank you to Sir Michael Fay and his team for providing the use of Great Mercury Island for our first launch site.

2010 looks set to be another exciting year for Rocket Lab. Over the next few months the team is meeting with a number of national and international organisations as we work towards our next launch. We will provide an update when further details have been confirmed.

The second stage payload section is designed to communicate its GPS co-ordinates back to base via the Iridium satellite constellation. However, the signal was lost and no relevant GPS transmission was received which would have helped us recover it. The morning after the launch, Rocket Lab received a radio hail from a commercial fishing boat reporting that they had found what appeared to be the first stage booster. We received the co-ordinates, swiftly boarded a boat, and traveled to a location 17km offshore from the launch site.

The recovery of the booster revealed a multitude of valuable information and data. The Rocket Lab team are still reviewing the data but initial findings suggest that the booster was providing the expected thrust levels at launch and showing good, stable combustion for the full burn-time, consuming all available fuel. The recovered booster also confirms clean separation of the second stage. Calculations from the raw data obtained confirm that the vehicle was on course for a nominal trajectory to over 100 kilometres altitude. View launch photographs.

The unit is physically incredibly small, fitting within an envelope 50mm diameter x 150mm length. The weight of the unit is a mere 250 grams including batteries. The reduction in size and weight of the unit is critical for improving the performance of sounding rockets such as Ātea-1. The unit is designed and tested to MIL-109-E shock and vibration tests and can handle up to 80°C ambient temperature.

The hardware consists of a low-power 32-bit microcontroller with RS232 output port and auxiliary expansion ports. It has 16-bit data logging capability, with an in-built Inertial Measurement Unit consisting of 3-axis accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers. Onboard GPS is standard and it is designed to interface with a number of telemetry options including the Iridium satellite network. View the SRA webpage for more information.