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"In terms of orbital rockets, only NASA's space shuttle and SpaceX's Falcon 9 vehicles have demonstrated the capability of re-flying an engine. With Rutherford, Rocket Lab has now also flown a rocket engine that landed in the ocean for the first time."

arstechnica.com/space/2023/08/

Ars Technica · The re-flight of a Rutherford engine demonstrates rocket reuse is here to stay"The data is in, perfect performance from the reused engine."

I forgot to comment on this earlier, but I hope it's a precursor to an eventual state where Rocket Lab has acquired Astra's Hall Effect thrusters and added it to their Space Systems portfolio. It makes a lot more sense there than it does with Astra at the moment.

We'll have to see if Astra gets its act together with Rocket 4 or whether the Astra Spacecraft Engine becomes something else Rocket Lab picks up in a firesale.

techcrunch.com/2023/07/05/astr

TechCrunchAstra establishes subsidiary for spacecraft engine businessAstra is carving out its spacecraft engine business as a wholly-owned subsidiary, in a move that provides more flexibility for the company.

"That leaves the launch market facing a strange paradox: Technical challenges and robust competition have made it difficult for new rocket builders to gain traction and raise funding, leading to predictions of a brutal rocket-maker winnowing. Meanwhile, satellite operators say they want more and better options to put hardware on orbit."

qz.com/emails/space-business/1

QuartzSpace Business: Failure to LaunchBy Tim Fernholz
#newspace#rklb#astr