This is a classified payload built, designed, and operated by the National Reconnaissance Office in partnership with the Australian Department of Defense.

Image: Rocket Lab

Designed, manufactured, and launched by Rocket Lab, Electron is a two-stage launch vehicle powered by liquid oxygen (LOx) and rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1). By incorporating an orbital transfer vehicle stage (Kick Stage) that can deploy multiple payloads to unique orbits on the same mission, Electron can support dedicated missions and rideshares.

Technical Specifications

Height: 18 m / 59 ft
Diameter: 1.2 m / 3.9 ft
Stages: 2 + Kick Stage
Wet mass: 13,000 kg / 28,660 lb
Payload to LEO: 300 kg / 661 lb

Electron utilizes advanced carbon composite technologies throughout the launch vehicle structures, including all of Electron’s propellant tanks. The carbon-composite construction of Electron decreases mass by as much as 40 percent compared with traditional aluminum launch vehicle structures. Rocket Lab fabricates tanks and other carbon composite structures in-house to improve cost efficiency and drive rapid production.

Electron is powered by the in-house designed and produced additively manufactured Rutherford engines.

First Stage

Electron’s first stage consists of nine sea-level Rutherford engines, linerless common bulkhead tanks for LOx and RP-1, and an interstage.

Rocket Lab’s flagship engine, the 5,600 lbf (24 kN) Rutherford, is an electric pumped LOx/ kerosene engine specifically designed for the Electron launch vehicle. Rutherford adopts an entirely new electric propulsion cycle, making use of brushless DC electric motors and high-performance lithium polymer batteries to drive its propellant pumps. This cuts down on much of the complex turbomachinery typically required for gas generator cycle engines, meaning that the Rutherford is simpler to build than a traditional engine but can achieve 90% efficiency. 130 Rutherford engines have been flown to space on Electron as of July 2020. Rutherford is also the first oxygen/hydrocarbon engine to use additive manufacturing for all primary components, including the regeneratively cooled thrust chamber, injector pumps, and main propellant valves. The Stage 1 and Stage 2 Rutherford engines are identical, with the exception of a larger expansion ratio nozzle for Stage 2 for improved performance in near-vacuum-conditions. All aspects of the Rutherford engines are completely designed in-house and are manufactured directly at our Long Beach headquarters in California, USA.

Second Stage

Electron’s second stage consists of a single vacuum-optimized Rutherford engine, and linerless common bulkhead tanks for LOx and kerosene. With an expanded nozzle, Electron’s second-stage engine produces a thrust of 5,800 lbf and has a specific impulse of 343 sec.

The 1.2 m diameter second stage has approximately 2,000 kg of propellant on board. The Electron Stage 2 has a burn time of approximately five minutes with a Rutherford vacuum engine as it places the Kick Stage into orbit.

High Voltage Batteries (HVBs) batteries provide power to the LOx and kerosene pumps for high-pressure combustion while a pressurant system is used to provide enough pump inlet pressure to safely operate. During the second stage burn, two HVBs power the electric pumps until depletion, when a third HVB takes over for the remainder of the second stage burn. Upon depletion, the first two HVBs are jettisoned from Electron to reduce mass and increase performance in flight.

The engine thrust is directed with electromechanical thrust vector actuators in two axes. Roll control is provided via a cold gas reaction control system (RCS

Kick Stage

Rocket Lab’s Kick Stage offers our customers unmatched flexibility for orbital deployment. The Kick Stage is a third stage of the Electron launch vehicle used to circularize and raise orbits to deploy payloads to unique and precise orbital destinations. The Kick Stage is powered by Rocket Lab’s in-house designed and built Curie engine. In its simplest form, the Kick Stage serves as in-space propulsion to deploy payloads to orbit. It its most advanced configuration the Kick Stage becomes Photon, Rocket Lab’s satellite bus that supports several-year duration missions to LEO, MEO, Lunar, and interplanetary destinations.

Credit: Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab's Launch Complex 1B (LC-1B) on the Māhia Peninsula on New Zealand's North Island is the latest part of the company's launch complex, with another under construction at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia.

An isolated location, the Māhia launch site hosted its first orbital launch attempt of Electron in May 2017 and its first successful orbital launch in January 2018. The first launch for LC-1B is scheduled for February 2022.

Together with Rocket Lab's third launch pad in Virginia, their launch sites can support up to 132 Electron launch opportunities every year.

The Māhia location has two launch pads (LC-1A and LC-1B) and two separate integration hangers to permit simultaneous and protected processing of two payloads for flight at the same time.

Pad B shares Pad A’s range assets including launch vehicle assembly hangar, three satellite cleanrooms, range control, and offices.

Photo: Rocket Lab