WASHINGTON — Rocket Lab expects to resume Electron launches in late November after concluding a “largely improbable” combination of events caused the vehicle’s previous launch to fail.
The company said Nov. 8 that it is targeting a return to flight of Electron no earlier than Nov. 28 from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. The rocket will carry a radar imaging satellite for Japanese company iQPS on a dedicated mission.
Electron has been grounded since a Sept. 19 launch failure when the second stage engine appeared to shut down moments after ignition. The company said Oct. 25 it was preparing to return to flight later in the quarter after getting authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration to resume launches, but did not disclose details of the ongoing investigation.
In an earnings call to discuss the company’s third quarter financial results, Rocket Lab Chief Executive Peter Beck said the failure happened quickly, with only 1.6 seconds of data from the first indication of a problem with the vehicle to the loss of telemetry. “This was always going to be a highly complex issue to figure out,” he said.
Detailed analysis of the telemetry that was available led engineers to conclude that there was an “unexpected electrical arc” within the power supply for the upper stage. That shorted the battery packs that power the upper stage, causing a loss of power.
Beck said that arc was the result of several factors. That included a “ripple voltage” in the power system, the presence of traces of helium gas and an “undetectable” flaw in insulation in the power system. Those factors combined, under conditions governed by a relationship called Paschen’s Law, to create the arc.
“If any of these things were not present, the failure would not have occurred,” he said. “So many things had to line up that most people would say that the probability of this occurring would be largely improbable.”
He…
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