Electron | As The Crow Flies

Launch Vehicle

Electron

Configuration:
Family: Electron

Electron is a two-stage orbital expendable launch vehicle (with an optional third stage) developed by the American aerospace company Rocket Lab. It is a relatively small rocket and used to launch small satellites and cubesats to sun-synchronous orbit. It is the first orbital class rocket to use electric-pump-fed engines, its Rutherford engines. It is a very cheap rocket to launch with, costing only 6 million per launch.

Earth Science

Encapsulated in Electron's fairing will be a single spacecraft for Astro Digital, a California-based satellite manufacturer and operator. The Landmapper-BC remote sensing satellite features a broad coverage multispectral imaging system with a resolution of 22 meters per pixel. Eventually, Astro Digital plans to extend the Landmapper-BC constellation to capture daily, multispectral imagery of the world’s arable land. The mission is named 'As The Crow Flies' in a nod to Astro Digital's Corvus Platform, which provides flexible and cost-effective solutions across a wide range of applications and mission profiles on bus variants ranging from 6U and 16U CubeSats to ESPA Class. Corvus is also a widely-distributed genus of birds which includes crows.