Space company tries to capture a falling rocket with a helicopter

A spatial vehicle company based in California will try to catch a falling rocket with a helicopter in the air. In a daring experiment, it hopes to reduce space travel by reusable its rockets.

Rocket Lab, which builds and starts small rockets, tries to produce the first reusable small carrier rocket in the world when it runs the catchment test late Friday evening (British time).

The feat is comparable to the attempt to thread a needle at high speed, but the founder of Rocket Lab, Peter Beck, said he was optimistic about success.

"I am quite confident that the helicopter pilots will catch it when they can see it," Beck told Reuters. "If we don't make it this time, we will learn a lot and next time we will make it, so I'm not worried."

The capture test is to take place off the coast of Mahia, New Zealand, the location of the primary starting place from Rocket Lab, provided the weather allows it.

The bold mission called "There and back again" includes a specially adapted helicopter that carries a hook cable and tries to catch the falling rocket and bring it back ashore.

The idea of reusing rockets was developed by the SpaceX company of the billion-dollar tech entrepreneur Elon Musk. But while the two-stage Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX is dependent on a fuel-rich new ignition for her return to earth, Rocket Lab said that her method would enable her to save costs and weight for additional fuel.

The vertical landing of rockets is a much more difficult task for smaller, lighter rockets. The first test of its kind will take place when the company's electron rocket brings 34 small satellites to space for its different customers.

About two and a half minutes after the start of Electron, the 18 m long two -stage carrier rocket separates. While the satellite -bearing second stage floats further into the orbit, the approximately 12 m high booster of the first stage falls back to earth. It will step back into the atmosphere on a narrow path and sink about 150 nautical miles to the sea.

"We have a pretty precise idea of where the rocket will land," a spokeswoman for Rocket Lab told The Telegraph.

"The rocket has communication devices so that we can communicate with it so that we know exactly where it comes down," she said.

When the booster level falls back to earth, two parachutes are used to dramatically slow down to about 10 meters per second.

A long, rope -like cable dangles on the parachutes. As soon as the rocket is almost four miles from the sea surface, two pilots who fly a specially made Sikorsky S-92 helicopter will try to take the booster.

The two-engine helicopter- which is typically used for offshore energy transport or for search and rescue operations- has a long cable with hook ends that is attached to it and resembles a fishing line in the design.

If everything goes according to plan, the pilots will control the helicopter hook and grab the cable attached to the rocket before unloading them onto a recovery ship to transport them back ashore.

Mr. Beck described the complex series of events as follows: "The attempt to catch a rocket when it falls back on earth is not an easy task, we absolutely thread the needle here, but ... if we can use a rocket twice, then we have just doubled our production."

he added: "We have successfully tested each piece individually, now it is only one orchestra for conducting."

The company launched around two dozen missions in orbit for a mixture of government and commercial customers, three of which ended with mission errors.

The growing field of small rocket companies also includes Astra Space and Richard Bransons Virgin Orbit.