SITE COUNTDOWN: Civil works are nearing completion at Rocket Lab’s Onenui Station Mahia launch site, at the end of the peninsula overlooking Portland Island. Picture by More FM/Scott McSloy
SITE COUNTDOWN: Civil works are nearing completion at Rocket Lab’s Onenui Station Mahia launch site, at the end of the peninsula overlooking Portland Island. Picture by More FM/Scott McSloy
MAHIA residents now have access to an improved internet connection. The new high-grade link will provide Rocket Lab with fast, reliable and consistent services to their launch site and offers spin-off benefits to the wider Mahia/Nuhaka community.
Rocket Lab already has the Mahia area covered with high-speed internet but willbe augmenting the capacity of the backhaul into the area.
The new high-grade link will feed the Mahia, Nuhaka and Morere areas. Residents will experience speeds more associated with urban areas. Improved internet speed should be noticeable within the next week.
Meanwhile, civil works are nearing completion at Rocket Lab’s Onenui Station Mahia launch site. To date 3.5km of roading has been upgraded and the vehicle-processing hangar installation completed, with most of the work carried out by local contractors.
Rocket Lab’s missionRocket Lab’s mission is to make satellite launching accessible and affordable. Using the Electron Launch Vehicle, Rocket Lab will launch small satellites used for imaging and communications technology into space. These provide services including optimised crop monitoring, improved weather reporting, internet from space, natural disaster prediction, up-to date maritime data and search and rescue services.
Electron is Rocket Lab’s latest rocket, and is an entirely carbon-composite vehicle that uses Rocket Lab’s Rutherford engines for its main propulsion system. Rocket Lab recently announced the Rutherford engine makes use of electric turbo-pumps and that the majority of its components are 3D-printed.
Electron is 16m long, 1.20m in diameter and has a lift-off mass of 12,800kg.
The rocket is capable of delivering payloads of up to 150kg to a 500km sun-synchronous orbit, which is the target range for the high-growth constellation-satellite market.
Wairoa’s Rocket Lab journey started in September when the company lodged a resource consent application for a satellite launch site at Onenui Station, on the southern tip of the Mahia Peninsula, which is owned by the Tawapata South Maori Incorporation. — Wairoa Star
