“This one was tricky — it’s actually 15 photos composited into one,” Blue wrote in an email to the Sentinel. “The most I could expose was 15 seconds without blowing out the sky and the boat. I actually missed slightly on aiming where the rocket was launching from — I wanted it closer to the boat so the rocket would arc over it. Knowledge for next time.
The rocket is named ‘Virginia is for Launch Lovers’ and is an Electron, built by a company called Rocket Lab in New Zealand. This was their first launch in the US — they have been launching the Electron rocket from their primary launch pad in New Zealand since 2017.
They started construction on their second launch site on Wallops Island in 2018, adding to the launch pads used by NASA, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX which launch satellites and International Space Station resupply missions. The launch was initially scheduled for December 2022, but was pushed back to January due to weather issues during the December launch window.
The rocket put a cluster of three small geolocation satellites into orbit for a company called HawkEye 360, a Herndon, Virginia-based company that provides geolocation and geospatial analytics services.”
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