Mission Overview
After a myriad of issues, and countless delays, the Zeta rocket finally escaped the bonds of gravity and took to the skies on March 22nd, at 1:34 pm. The flight was largely successful, with full-duration burns of both stages.
Major Points
-Following two separate burns from the second stage, the mock payload and advanced third stage were released into a 156 x 97 km orbit. While not perfect, these parameters were within the allowable range of error for the first test flight.
-The first stage performed well during flight, and stayed in contact with the ground after separation until just above 9 km. The reason for this loss of signal is still unknown.
-Following the end of the stream, the third stage waited until apogee to complete its mission and perform a re-entry burn. The stage completed the burn successfully and re-entered Droo's atmosphere, burning up in the process.
Future Missions
With the next flight, we will be launching our first commercial mission, and test our advanced third stages capabilities. A secondary objective is getting our core stage through the atmosphere and to the ground in one piece. We will again only be monitoring the stage, and no recovery attempt will be made.
Link to the livestream here