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DeepSpace: Rocket Lab nails third Electron launch of 2019 as next rocket heads to launch pad

Rocket Lab's Electron rocket lifts off from Mahia Peninsula on June 29th for the company's third launch of 2019. (Rocket Lab)

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Welcome to the latest edition of DeepSpace! Each week, I’ll hand-craft this newsletter to give you a breakdown of what’s happening in the space industry and tell you what you need to know. 

On June 29th, startup Rocket Lab completed its third successful Electron rocket launch this year, placing roughly half a dozen small(ish) satellites in orbit as part of a dedicated mission for Seattle-based startup Spaceflight Industries.

Technically speaking, with three launches under its belt, Rocket Lab has now reached orbit more times this year than the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Atlas V and Delta IV rockets combined, despite the fact that the company conducted its first commercial launch just seven months ago. In other words, Rocket Lab is finding its stride with Electron at an unprecedented speed and may be able to complete its tenth successful orbital launch less than two years after the company first reached orbit (January 2018). June 29th’s launch is just the latest in a string of impressive successes for Rocket Lab and the company doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon.



Electron Flight 7: “Make It Rain”

  • A tongue-in-cheek reference to the stereotype that it rains constantly in Seattle, home of launch contractor Spaceflight Industries, Electron Flight 7 was a commercial rideshare mission that included six publicly manifested satellites and at least one classified payload.
    • Altogether, the payload mass was reported by Rocket Lab to be roughly 80 kg (175 lb). Aside from marking the orbital debut of Australia’s Melbourne Space Program, Flight 7’s main passenger – manifested via SpaceX – was BlackSky’s ~56 kg (125 lb), dishwasher-sized Global 3 satellite, the third of its kind to reach orbit.
    • BlackSky’s ultimate goal is to build a full constellation of at least 60 Global satellites, each capable of delivering >1000 images with an impressive resolution of ~1m/pixel. The first four (including Global 3) were actually built by Spaceflight itself, but the 60-satellite constellation is to be produced at LeoStella’s recently-inaugurated Seattle factory and replaced every few years.
 

Attached above black, rectangular cubesat dispensers is BlackSky’s minifridge-sized Global 3 satellite (top), encapsulated inside Electron’s carbon fiber fairing soon after (left). Electron lifted off (right) on June 28th (June 29th local time) and was greeted by a spectacular sunset-lit view of its launch site, located on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula. (Rocket Lab)

  • It can be all but guaranteed that BlackSky (or LeoStella) will return to Rocket Lab for future Global satellite launch contracts, perhaps flying 2-3 spacecraft at a time to expedite constellation completion and lower the overall cost of getting it into orbit.
  • Carrying a price tag of roughly $6M, Electron is capable of placing 150 kg (330 lb) into a 500 km (310 mi) sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). 3 Global satellites would likely push Electron to its limits, while 2 would leave plenty of space for additional copassenger spacecraft and thus opportunities to lower the overall cost to BlackSky.
  • Some 50 minutes after lifting off from New Zealand, Electron’s third stage – a “kick stage” powered by a custom-built Curie engine – ignited and burned for about 45 seconds, circularizing its orbit. A few minutes later, all 6-7+ spacecraft were successfully deployed, leaving the kick stage to once again lower its orbit to facilitate a quick and controlled reentry, minimizing space debris.

Onto the next one

  • Pictured at the bottom of the gallery above, Rocket Lab – much like SpaceX – completed a full static fire test of Flight 8’s Electron upper stage, the last major test milestone standing in the way of Electron’s next launch. Located in Auckland, NZ, the upper stage will now be shipped around 300 mi (500 km) south to Rocket Lab’s Mahia Peninsula-based Launch Complex 1 (LC-1).
  • According to Rocket Lab’s website, Electron Flight 8 is scheduled no earlier than (NET) August 2019, although the company’s Flight 7 webcast host indicated that it could happen as early as July.
    • Either way, it appears that Rocket Lab is well on its way to achieving a bimonthly average launch cadence this year.
    • The company’s goal is to reach a monthly launch cadence by the end of the year, roughly halving its current 2019 average of ~50 days between launches.
  • Ultimately, Rocket Lab’s future continues to look brighter month by month. As the only commercial smallsat launch operator currently serving customers, the company is essentially early to the party and has the market cornered by simply being first. Every launch will provide experience and get the company closer to profitability and even greater launch cadences, perhaps as high as 2-3x per month by the end of 2020.
Thanks for being a Teslarati Reader! Become a member today to receive an issue of DeepSpace in your inbox every Tuesday.

– Eric

Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Tesla is ending Cybertruck production

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Credit: diagnosticdennis/Instagram and @smile__no via Tesla Owners of Santa Clarita Valley/X

Tesla is ending Cybertruck production sometime in mid-2027, according to CEO Elon Musk.

Musk made the announcement on X last night, which came as a shock to many. He said that the Cybertruck will end production “to make room for increased Cybercab production” at Gigafactory Texas.

It is a huge blow to the fans of Tesla who have come to love the Cybertruck and identify with it as a symbol of their fandom. It has been the best-selling electric pickup, but it has had an underwhelming sales performance in terms of what was expected. This is mostly due to Tesla not meeting the prices it planned to offer the Cybertruck, as its unveiling and actual release were four years apart.

Overall, the responses were mixed. Some fans understood the move toward Cybercab production, especially as Tesla is truly pushing the autonomous future through its Robotaxi platform. However, others did not understand it.

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“Damn, how many Cybercabs do you guys need?” one response read. Another said it was “Sad but understandable.”Even analyst Gary Black had responded to the news, stating he hoped Tesla planned to replace it with a traditional pickup design.

It doesn’t seem like that will be the case.

Tesla is so hell-bent on delivering autonomy and eventually providing a driverless service that owning a car seems like an arbitrary idea, according to their thesis. Instead, Cybercabs will be available to pick you up and drop you off on demand, safely, without any human help.

As a result, Tesla has thinned its lineup considerably, and one can only ask where the vehicle lineup goes from here. Eventually, it seems like Cybercab could be the only vehicle that Tesla will sell.

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SpaceX’s next Starship flight set to make history on Friday the 13th

SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15 and its first ship catch.

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SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15, the mission the company plans to use for its first attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower.

SpaceX Vice President of Launch Kiko Dontchev shared the date on stage at the UP.Summit on Thursday, according to Ars Technica’s Eric Berger, who was in attendance. It is the first launch target to come directly from a SpaceX executive. Until now, the public schedule had relied on FAA air traffic planning slides, which listed Flight 15 for no earlier than November 8 and later November 12. SpaceX has not posted an official mission page yet, and no launch time has been shared.

The date lands inside the window Elon Musk sketched out last month. Speaking at Giga Texas on October 10, Musk said the flight would “probably launch a little bit before Thanksgiving,” as Teslarati reported. On SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call ten days later, he confirmed that Flight 15 would try to catch both the Super Heavy booster and the ship, and put the odds of a successful ship catch at “more likely than not.” SpaceX also aired an animation of the maneuver during that webcast, showing the ship swinging vertical over Starbase before dropping into the tower’s chopsticks.

The hardware is ready. Booster 22 fired all 33 of its Raptor engines for a full duration static fire at Pad 2 on October 25. Ship 42 followed with a single engine burn simulating a deorbit maneuver on October 26 and a 60 second firing of all six engines the next day, according to NASASpaceflight. Ship 42 had already rehearsed the catch in September, when the Pad 2 arms lifted it into position and crews connected the quick disconnect arm while the vehicle hung from the tower.

The remaining hurdle is regulatory. The FAA’s Starship page does not yet list a Flight 15 license. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in October that, after “significant constructive engagement with the FAA,” she expects the license to cover a return to the launch site and a tower catch for both stages. Bringing the ship home means a reentry path that heads toward land, rather than ending over open ocean as every Starship flight so far has.

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SpaceX has caught Super Heavy three times, on Flights 5, 7 and 8, but the ship comes back from orbital velocity and has never been caught. Flight 14 on September 28 was the first Starship to reach orbit, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites before splashing down despite an early engine shutdown that Musk blamed on engine computer software.

Musk has called a successful ship catch “the first time that there’s been full recovery of an orbital class rocket,” and he has already named the step after it: a Flight 16 where both the booster and the ship fly again. NASASpaceflight reports that Ship 43, the next vehicle in line, is set for static fire testing in December.

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EVgo taps Tesla Superchargers for mass charging expansion

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Credit: EVgo

EVgo has tapped Tesla Superchargers for its most recent efforts to expand its charging presence in the United States, a move that seems logical based on the effectiveness of the automaker’s own infrastructure.

EVgo opened its first Supercharger site in Illinois, a 12-stall station near downtown Chicago at 3145 South Ashland Avenue in the Riverside Square & River’s Edge center, right beside a grocery store. This marks the start of the company’s plan to deploy hundreds of Supercharger stalls across the United States, primarily at grocery-anchored Regency Centers properties where drivers can shop, eat, or run errands while they charge.

The new location uses Tesla’s Magic Dock technology so both NACS and CCS vehicles can plug in natively without drivers needing to carry their own adapters. Peak power reaches 325 kW at this site, with pricing set between $0.25 and $0.35 per kWh depending on the hour—the same rate for Tesla and non-Tesla drivers.

The stalls also appear in Tesla’s in-car navigation and Trip Planner, making them easy for Tesla owners to find and route to. Illinois has seen EV registrations rise nearly 60 percent over the past two years, and EVgo’s broader network has experienced more than 700 percent growth in charging demand over three years, so the timing fits the market’s trajectory.

Choosing Tesla hardware through the Supercharger for Business program turns out to have been a smart, practical move.

Tesla’s V4 stalls and cabinets deliver high, reliable power with a proven track record of strong uptime, while Magic Dock delivers true dual-standard compatibility in one package. Because the sites show up in Tesla’s navigation tools, EVgo instantly gains visibility among millions of existing Tesla drivers, which should raise utilization and help the company double its addressable market as more vehicles adopt NACS. EVgo still owns the stations and sets pricing, yet benefits from Tesla’s established hardware, longer cables, and operational support.

The result is faster, lower-risk infrastructure expansion that serves every EV driver—Tesla or otherwise—with convenient, high-power charging at everyday retail locations. For drivers, that means fewer adapters, more predictable stops, and a denser network just as electric vehicles become everyday transportation.

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