They have been saying this was the year when they step into high gear but there hasn't been a launch for exactly 3 months. What does this do to their backlog of customers and future launch cadence? The recent tweets are pointing to delays at DARPA, not at RL, maybe to send the message "it's not our fault"?
They did 3 last year despite not launching in the months from February to October. They are targeting 12. I'm guessing about 7. Much better than last year, but they won't make their goal in my opinion.
You would think that with a plan to have a high launch cadence, they would have rockets and payloads waiting. Given this then why wouldn't you just launch another payload first?
You would think that with a plan to have a high launch cadence, they would have rockets and payloads waiting. Given this then why wouldn't you just launch another payload first?
These aren't containers sitting on wharf waiting for ship to turn up. Lot of payloads require their owners to be in NZ for integration and launch. Scheduling the staff travel plus payloads travel takes time. Lot of launches have multiple payloads and customers.
If I was spending $240k on my startup's first cubesat launch, I'd want to be present to make sure everything was perfect.
There has been noises that the launch cadence/delays are not mostly due to customers, as customers have been getting launch date pushback from RocketLabs. Something is afoot.