Friday, May 3, 2024

Rocket Lab Preparing Two NASA Launches

Long Beach-based Rocket Lab said this week that it is planning two, back-to-back missions for NASA, to deploy satellites for NASA. According to the company, it has two back-to-back Electronic launches to deploy the NASA PREFIRE (Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment) mission. The company said the first will launch no earlier than May 22, 2024, and the second within three weeks of the first mission. The company said the launches will be its 48th and 49th missions, and the sixth and seventh launches this year. Rocket Lab focuses on launching small satellites (cubesats) into space. Rocket Lab said the NASA satellites will systematically measure the heat, in the form of infrared and far-infrared wavelengths, lost from Earth's polar regions for the first time, explaining that extreme storms, flooding, and coastal erosion are examples of weather outcomes that are influenced by climate conditions in the Arctic and Antarctica.