The rocket startup will attempt to catch its Electron booster in mid-air and fly it back to dry land.

U.S. and New Zealand-based Rocket Lab will perform a second mid-air recovery attempt of its Electron rocket booster after the launch of a mission called “Catch Me If You Can,” a press statement reveals.

Rocket Lab to attempt another mid-air booster recovery.

Rocket Lab.

The launch is scheduled for November 4 at 1:15 p.m. Eastern from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. The mission will lift a scientific satellite into orbit for the Swedish National Space Agency.

The SmallSat will use a four-laser reflectometer, with near-infrared wavelengths that are easily absorbed by water, to identify ice on the Moon’s surface.

In a few weeks, a small satellite will shine a light on the permanently shadowed craters of the Moon, looking for reservoirs of water ice that could be highly beneficial to astronauts.

NASA’s Lunar Flashlight, the size of a small briefcase, is scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida between November 9 and 15 with the Japanese Hakuto-R lander and United Arab Emirate’s Rashid 1 rover.

It’s known that water ice exists below the lunar regolith (broken rock and dust), but scientists don’t yet understand whether surface ice frost covers the floors inside these cold craters. To find out, NASA is sending Lunar Flashlight, a small satellite (or SmallSat) no larger than a briefcase. Swooping low over the lunar South Pole, it will use lasers to shed light on these dark craters—much like a prospector looking for hidden treasure by shining a flashlight into a cave. The mission will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in mid-November.

“This launch will put the satellite on a trajectory that will take about three months to reach its science orbit,” said John Baker, the mission’s project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Then Lunar Flashlight will try to find water ice on the surface of the Moon in places that nobody else has been able to look.”

SpaceX has rolled out an upgraded version of its Rideshare program that will allow even more small satellite operators to send their spacecraft to orbit for extremely low prices.

SpaceX threw its hat into the growing ring of smallsat launch aggregators in August 2019 with its Smallsat Program. Initially, the company offered a tiered pricing scale with multiple rates for the different sizes of ports a satellite operator could attach their spacecraft to. For customers purchasing their launch services more than 12 months in advance, SpaceX aimed to charge a minimum of $2.25 million for up to 150 kilograms (~330 lb) and a flat $15,000 for each additional kilogram. Customers placing their order 6–12 months before launch would pay a 33% premium ($20,000/kg).

SpaceX may have sorely misjudged the market, however, because the company introduced a simpler, reworked pricing system just a few months later. SpaceX slashed prices threefold, removed most of the tier system, and added a portal that allowed customers to easily reserve launch services online. Compared to the first attempt, the new pricing – $1 million for up to 200 kilograms (~440 lb) and $5000 for each extra kilogram – was extraordinarily competitive and effectively solidified SpaceX as the premier source of rideshare launch services overnight. Save for an inflation-spurred increase to $1.1 million and $5500/kg, that pricing has remained stable for almost three years, and SpaceX’s Smallsat Program has become a spectacular success.