NASA’s initially awarded the contract to launch all six payloads to Astra with its Rocket 3 launcher in part of its Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare or VADR contract. There will be a total of four satellites in NASA’s constellation. In addition, Rocket Lab will launch two more satellites in two weeks and will have to be perfectly timed to enter the constellation. These satellites needed to be launched in the spring in order to be ready to start observations ahead of this year’s hurricane season. NASA stated it was able to connect to both satellites in the early hours of the morning and begin sending commands. Wanna connect? Join our Discord server! Featuring forums and chatrooms for space fans. While not as quick as SpaceX’s Falcon 9/Heavy launch rate, this mission keeps Rocket Lab on track for its first double-digit year. This was Rocket Lab’s fourth Electron launch of 2023 and the second from New Zealand. This was done because Rocket Lab’s kick stage, a third stage option of Electron, was used to make an orbit inclination change instead of doing the circularizing itself. However, this mission differed from previous Electron launches as the second stage was used to circularize the mission’s orbit rather than place it in an elliptical one. Rocket Lab’s launch went off without a hitch, lifting off at 9:00 P.M. Rocket Lab launches fourth Electron of 2023 Hopefully, these new satellites will increase that and improve models used to prepare coastal cities for these powerful storms. Current space bases solutions that researchers and forecasters use can only provide updates only six hours apart. The Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation Structure and Storm Intensity with a Constellation of SmallSats or TROPICS is a constellation of SmallSats that will provide almost hourly updates on future hurricanes. This is the second launch of NASA’s TROPICS mission but the first with Rocket Lab and the first pair of satellites to reach orbit.
Sunday evening, on a mission dubbed “Rocket Like a Hurricane,” Rocket Lab lifted off from LC-1B at its private spaceport in New Zealand with two NASA satellites designed to study hurricanes.
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