Rocket Lab Plans to Retrieve Reentering Rocket Stages by Helicopter

Rocket Lab[1,2] is a small launcher company that straddles New Zealand and the US. Their HQ is in Long Beach, CA these days, but their starting point was actually in New Zealand. They probably did this to be able to take advantage of US government contracts. While being able to launch in NZ has benefits for polar orbits, the international market can be a very tough place to compete for a small company in the space launch industry.

Rocket Lab first built a sounding rocket, the Atea-1 and bragged they were the first southern hemisphere company to have reached space. Accurate or not. They then a fully small sat launcher, the Electron[3]. Their rocket launches are inexpensive, on the scale of rockets, but they cannot loft huge payloads.

SpaceX is notable for its reusable first stages of their rockets. SpaceX launches and lands their first stage on the ground, like a spaceship of old. This is complex and other than a small number of demos by the US and China, hasn't been done. SpaceX is the only entity to have done it for a rocket capable of reaching orbit. Reusing the stages is almost assuredly the best way to reduce those costs and SpaceX may have done so (not a public company as yet, so hard to really know). Rocket Lab also wants to reduce their costs and to that end, like SpaceX, wants to make the rocket stages themselves reusable.

Rocket Lab's solution is rather different though[4]. They want to catch the boosters in the air by helicopter. While the choice of air vehicle is a bit different, the concept is not new. The USAF used to catch film canisters from spysats using aircraft[5]. So! It's not entirely crazy. Even so, using helicopters is a little different. Anything like this takes demonstrations and proofs of concept. To that end:



That was only a demo, to be sure, a baby step to getting to where they want to go. And, it might just work. And it's far, far simpler than SpaceX's landings. I will editorially say its far less cool though. Even so, cost reduction is not a bad thing whatsoever.

1. www.rocketlabusa.com...
2. en.wikipedia.org...
3. en.wikipedia.org...(rocket)
4. newatlas.com...
5. en.wikipedia.org...(satellite)#Recovery

Yearh but.. only works for baby rockets.

a reply to: anzha

At what altitude are those helicopters?

The test was conducted by dropping an Electron first stage test article from a helicopter over open ocean in New Zealand. A parachute was then deployed from the stage, before a second helicopter closed in on the descending stage and captured it mid-air at around 5,000 ft, using a specially designed grappling hook to snag the parachute’s drogue line. After capturing the stage on the first attempt, the helicopter safely carried the suspended stage back to land.

www.parabolicarc.com...

more info, too:

www.flightglobal.com...

a reply to: Wide-Eyes

Fairly low. They won't catch it until it's slowed way down and is pretty deep into the helicopter envelope.

We used to snag drones with helicopters. It's nothing terribly novel or difficult.


Also look up the demonstrations supporting HLMAR for NASA...

a reply to: anzha

Copenhagen Suborbital amateur rocket group, which has as its objective launching a human carrying rocket past the Von Karman line of 100 km.

They are also working on a means of recovering their SPICA booster using a ballute/parachute system

copenhagensuborbitals.com...