Sounding Rockets

Rocket Lab has considerable experience in the development of complete sub-orbital sounding rocket systems, with the development of the Ātea series. Our capabilities encompass the entire sounding rocket development process including design, analysis, testing, manufacture and launch.

The Ātea platforms are dedicated to enabling pioneering scientific research and the formation of new commercial applications. The company has developed a number of sounding rockets for various clients ranging from low altitude 50mm vehicles to 250mm vehicles capable of lifting 25kg to space.

Rocket Lab also has a number of dedicated launch ranges including the sounding rocket launch facility located on Mercury Island, just off the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand.

Ātea 1

Rocket Lab has developed a flexible launch vehicle that offers cost-effective and environmentally-benign access to space. Ātea-1 is a two-stage sub-orbital vehicle capable of carrying payloads of 2 kg up to 150 km altitude. The new launch vehicle offers significant advantages in cost and is aimed at opening up access to space for scientific research at an unprecedented level.

Rocket Lab has taken the approach to provide the international science community with a quick-response, mobile solution with high flexibility in mind. It can be launched by users on existing launch infrastructure or Rocket Lab can provide complete launch and recovery services.

The Ātea-1 leverages Rocket Lab’s innovative propulsion technologies in the form of a hybrid booster. This engine uses a polymer based fuel with liquid Nitrous Oxide. The engine is capable of producing a peak thrust of 1,550 lbf for up to 14.5s, resulting in a total impulse of approximately 22,500 lbf-s.

The new launch vehicle demonstrates and showcases Rocket Lab’s wide ranging and innovative capabilities in developing rocket engines, launch vehicles and associated subsystems. The vehicle utilises composite materials intensively for flight structures, pressure vessels and the combustion chamber. This results in an extremely mass efficient vehicle – weighing less than 65kg at launch (with propellant). The entire vehicle has an inert, dry mass of less than 20kg.

The standard Ātea-1 features a comprehensive in-house developed avionics package, recovery systems for land or sea, power supply and payload-avionics interface. Some of the many advantages of this vehicle include:

• Inert shipping – no solid fuels or explosives
• ITAR free – Rocket Lab is able to export to customers from any friendly nation
• Land or sea-based recovery is possible
• Payload recovery – A GPS transceiver uses the Inmarsat B satellite constellation to communicate the launch vehicle

View the video clip below of the Ātea-1 rocket launch on November 30th, 2009 from Great Mercury Island, New Zealand.

Ātea 2

Rocket Lab has also developed a design for a larger sub-orbital vehicle, capable of carrying payloads of up to 70kg to space. Peak altitude for a nominal payload mass of 25kg is approximately 250km.

Ātea-2 is designed purely as a vehicle to conduct scientific research. Its design ethos enables it to undertake a variety of mission profiles with minimal reconfiguration. The vehicle can be clustered to provide large launch payload weights and shortened if lower altitudes or payload weights are desired.

The principle is to have a completely flexible vehicle that can be configured easily to differing launch profiles.