“Returning a rocket from space and catching it in a helicopter is like a supersonic ballet”

Rocket Lab captured the first spent stage of an Electron rocket using a helicopter. Launch and landing It was published on the company’s YouTube channel.

Electron is an ultra-light rocket with a payload of approximately 250 kilograms and a height of 17 meters. This small size and weight allowed the company to use a number of unusual technologies to simplify the design – for example, the turbopumps of Rutherford engines are powered by batteries rather than burning some of the fuel in a small combustion chamber.

For a long time, the Rocket Lab has existed in a narrow economic niche: launching small satellites into unusual orbits (for example, high inclination), for which it is difficult for several customers to launch together on a heavy rocket. But over the past few years, the company has announced improvements, announced plans for a heavier Neutron rocket, and modified the Electron to make the first stage usable again.

The task was called There And Again, in reference to Tolkien’s The Hobbit, or There and Again. Two minutes after launch from the promised New Zealand spaceport on Tuesday night (MSK), there was a pitch separation. The second stage continued the acceleration of the 34 satellites, and the first stage began their descent into the calculated area. At an altitude of about 13 kilometers, a brake parachute designed for high speed came out, and at an altitude of six kilometers the main parachute was released.

The rocket continued its soft landing at a vertical velocity of 10 meters per second. After a while, the pilot of the Sikorsky S-92 helicopter noticed him and went to block the road. At an altitude of two kilometers, he managed to tie the rocket’s parachute with a hook on a cable, thereby catching it.

“Bringing a rocket out of space and catching it in a helicopter is like supersonic ballet. It requires a combination of many factors, all systems work flawlessly, and I’m proud of the success of the rocket recovery team and all of our engineers who tackled the mission and caught our first capture,” he said.

– said company president Peter Beck.

However, some time after the success, he announced that the helicopter pilot realized that the load was too great. The helicopter unhooked the stage and slowly leaped down. It was taken by a ship, and according to the broadcast’s host, the scene is still in perfect condition. Now engineers need to do a detailed analysis and find out if it’s possible to launch a rocket back into space. If the answer is positive, the company will be able to drastically reduce the cost of new launches, as SpaceX did, whose stages are tailed off using rocket engines.

The There And Back Again mission was commented on by Pavel Pushkin, an independent space expert and former director of the Kosmokurs company, which is trying to create a Russian private rocket to launch space tourists.

“In general, the idea of ​​​​taking a rocket stage by helicopter is not new, it has been put forward for a long time, including here in Russia. The most interesting part is that this is a very mature technology related to space. Similarly, landing vehicles and capsules with photographic film were also returned from space,” he said.

– said.

The main problem in acquiring the spacecraft is their weight and the carrying capacity of the helicopter. In addition, with an increase in the weight of the rocket stage, the dimensions of the parachute increase, so the helicopter begins to blow it up. Experts believe that parachute return is a good alternative to a legged jet landing, as it eliminates the need to calculate the dynamics and release fuel for the braking stroke.

In addition, according to Pushkin, a similar scheme was planned to be used in the Soviet Union to rescue the boosters of the Energia-Buran system using two helicopters. These spacecraft were supposed to be reusable like “shuttles”. The Space Shuttle dropped solid rocket boosters into the ocean for reuse, while the Buran was launched from land and relied on more fragile liquid side stages. However, the helicopter rescue project never made it out of the early stages of development.

Formerly Rocket Lab introduced Return rocket Neutron with jet landing. It has a much higher payload than the Electron and sets it apart from the competition with a head covering integrated into the first stage. As a result, the rocket becomes like a nesting doll, as if “spitting” the second stage and closing the doors back.