Rocket Lab Gets NASA Certification For Official Smallsat Launches

Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle has received Category 1 certification from NASA, meaning it is authorized for use on more important missions, opening up a whole new revenue stream for the growing launch provider. TechCrunch reports: The certification was largely based on the success of “This One’s for Pickering” in late 2018, the company’s fourth commercial launch, which took a batch of NASA cubesats into orbit as part of the ELaNa-19 mission. This experimental mission was undertaken as part of NASA’s Venture Class Launch Services initiative to test out newer and smaller launch vehicles using non-critical payloads. Certification categories go from 1-3, from “high risk” to “low risk,” based largely on successful launches, which as you might imagine is something of a catch-22: You need the launches to get the certification, but you need the certification to get the launches. Fortunately, one can break the cycle with non-essential missions like small experimental satellites — which is sort of the purpose of the VCLS program. Category 2 certification is in process, but is of course even more stringent and requires six consecutive successful missions with the same rocket configuration. Rocket Lab has 10 in a row at present, but there’s likely a lot of paperwork involved as well.