On May 15 at 11:11 UTC, Rocket Lab launched their twentieth Electron rocket from their LC-1A pad on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. It was carrying two Earth observation satellites for Blacksky Global. Spoiler alert: they did not go to space that day.

The launch was delayed about an hour from its originally scheduled time due to high upper-level winds. After the conditions had improved, the team smoothly counted down to zero, and the rocket lifted off the pad in the pitch darkness. All looked good during the ascent up until second stage ignition when the engine appeared to shut down just a few seconds after it started. Immediately after that happened, the engine gimbal went hard over in one direction, sending the rocket spinning.

The feed from the engine camera was lost shortly afterward, but not before it showed the engine bell cooling down. That was not a good sign. An engine bell only cools down when the engine isn’t firing, and the engine should have been firing at this point. Rocket Lab ended the stream early citing the loss of telemetry. Later on Twitter, they confirmed the failure citing a generic “anomaly following second stage ignition”.

This was to be the first of several dedicated missions for Blacksky Global, sending pairs of their 60-kilogram (30 two-liter soda bottles) satellites into orbit to meet the new demand for their imaging services.

Not all was lost! The secondary mission for “Running Out of Toes” was the recovery of the first stage — a baby step towards reusability. The first stage successfully survived reentry through the atmosphere and a parachute-assisted splashdown 663 kilometers downrange where it was retrieved from the water by contracted ship Seaworker.

More Information

PDF: Running Out of Toes press kit (Rocket Lab)

Launch video