Rocket Launch Slips Due To Delay in DARPA Arrival

Rocket Lab the popular launching pad has announced the launch of rocket of in January, the company was scheduled for the late February to launch.

It is Rocket Lab's very first rocket launch of 2019, which is now going to occur in the second half of March only because of the delayed arrival of its payload as per the reports of SpaceNews. DARPA gave a statement this week that its Radiofrequency Risk Reduction Deployment Demonstration shortly called as R3D2 satellite has only arrived on March 4at New Zealand for the final launch preparation. Rocket Lab as per the reports of Space news stated that the launch of this satellite would happen between March 16 and 30. This 150-kilogram weighing satellite will be the only payload. Rocket Lab's goal were aiming for 12 missions in 2019 which seems to an ambitious project, while on the other hand it seems that Rocket Labs will go with a maximum of a single launch in the first quarter of 2019, whichis still an inaccurate statement. That Northrop Grumman is the main contractor for the R3D2 satellite, which is employed to test the technologies for the deployed antennas. Once it reaches to the orbit, R3D2 satellite will be deployed at theKapton membrane which will thereafter expand further to a diameter of 2.25 meters to establish the ability towards the small satellites so as to carry some large deployed antennas that are needed to support communication system with high-bandwidth. R3D2satellite will be the only payload on the launch which is the first in the history for Rocket Lab since an Electron which was launched in December last year that had carried around a dozen of small satellites. The company further stated in January to the Space news that the mass and volume of the R3D2 satellite took over the entire capacity of a rocket, thereafter putting no other space for secondary payloads.Rocket Lab plans to perform the launch in 2019 as it shifts into operations to make it to one per month stats. Most of those launches of the rocket labs will take happen from LC-1 in New Zealand, whereas the company is also planning to carry out the first launch from its newly developed launch site referred as LC-2 that is still under construction located at the Middle Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia.

By: AnujaArora

Content:https://spacenews.com/rocket-lab-launch-of-darpa-satellite-slips/