parachutes – Lifeboat News: The Blog https://lifeboat.com/blog Safeguarding Humanity Thu, 16 Apr 2020 11:06:17 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 The Electron goes reusable. https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/04/the-electron-goes-reusable Thu, 16 Apr 2020 11:06:17 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=105463
Electron test article during a March 2020 parachute test. Credit Rocket Lab

No, it’s not a high budget Mission Impossible action movie, but it could have been. Tom Cruise wasn’t piloting a helicopter that grabbed a rocket falling back to the Earth. Instead, a crew wearing black Rocket Lab t-shirts with the words “recovery team” written on the back took the skies in helicopters to grab a falling rocket. Since it wasn’t Tom Cruise, the video of the team grabbing a rocket midflight ranked higher on the awesome scale.

Daring capture of Booster

A few weeks ago, Rocket Lab took a major step forward to recover boosters. In a recent release to media, Rocket Lab shared videos successfully grabbing a parachute & test booster out of the sky using a helicopter. On the first try, the helicopter grabbed the first stage test article with a grappling hook.

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