Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Electron

Here is a new addon I'm making of New Zealand's new Electron rocket (Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Rocket Lab, the maker of Electron, and this endeavor is purely for fun).
Electron is a small rocket for launching 100 kg-class payloads to LEO: http://www.rocketlabusa.com
They're aiming to make their first launch in 2015, which if it succeeds would not only make New Zealand the 11th nation to perform an orbital launch with its own rocket, but would also start a trend of "smaller cheaper faster" in the launch industry.

Here is the full stack:


This is the 2nd stage (no payload yet):


All textures come from the Rocket Lab web site.
I used Blender for 3d modeling.
The aim is to model a full mission, such as a small spacecraft delivery to a translunar trajectory. I don't know if that's realistic though. I'm currently trying to get NASA's GMAT to compile on my Mac so that I can generate some interesting trajectories.

Continue reading...

This article was originally published on the Celestial Matters forum.

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