On Thursday, May 25, 2017, Rocket Lab made history. (Again.)
Blasting off from Launch Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand at 4:20 p.m. local time, Rocket Lab’s experimental “Electron” small rocket came within inches (or, more accurately, a few miles per hour) of achieving orbital speed — the first “orbital-class” small rocket ever to launch from ground to space and reach such heights (both figurative and literal).