Curie ignition confirmed.
The people in mission control are wearing Santa/elf hats.
Edit: Curie cutoff and payload deployment confirmed.
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Curie ignition confirmed.
The people in mission control are wearing Santa/elf hats.
Edit: Curie cutoff and payload deployment confirmed.
SECO, third stage separation, and nominal transfer orbit. Curie engine burn in roughly 40 minutes.
Battery hotswap confirmed.
MECO, stage separation, stage 2 ignition, and fairing jettison confirmed.
Liftoff!
LOx load complete: https://x.com/RocketLab/status/1870458371494793632
Before and after LOx ❄️
T-60 minutes until lift-off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7VZB4pHJrQ
Well, that was a short webcast. Launch scrubbed for the day.
https://x.com/RocketLab/status/1869623681586274779
We made a list (of launch commit criteria), checked it twice (against the weather forecast), and determined conditions for lift-off were naughty not nice.
As a result we're now targeting 21 Dec NZT for the launch of 'Owl The Way Up' for @Synspective.
⏰NZT | 3:00 am, 21 Dec
⏰PT | 6:00 am, 20 Dec
⏰ET | 9:00 am, 20 Dec
⏰UTC | 14:00, 20 Dec
Hmm I don't think I'll watch this one live. I have work tomorrow 😆
Is this the last mission of the year?
Possibly. There are a couple more listed as "NET December 2024" on NextSpaceflight, but I wouldn't be surprised if these slip to 2025.
What is NET in this context. No estimated time?
"No Earlier Than", in this context.
By the way, the launch has been rescheduled for tomorrow morning :)
Ah OK, so good chance of being next year then.
Rescheduled for tomorrow morning but it's still 3am 😆. I struggle to stay up to midnight these days!
so good chance of being next year then
Yep! And Murielle Baker just confirmed that this is their final launch of the year.
I watched the launch coverage this morning after I woke up. Do other companies do funny things like checking in with the north pole on the preflight checks or is RocketLab a bit unique like that?
I think that particular preflight check might have been added due to launch date's proximity to Christmas :)
I don't recall any other launch providers including a north pole preflight check, but Firefly included a "pointy end up, flamey end down" check when they partnered with Everyday Astronaut to livestream their first launch.
Edit; found it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HfHAazNM3Q&t=1095s
Haha that's great!