New Zealanders launch rocket into space

Nov 30, 2009, 2:10 GMT

   Wellington - A 6-metre rocket launched into space from a New Zealand island on Monday, fulfilling a long-held dream for two local men, one so mad about the venture that he changed his name to Rocket by deed poll.

   Mark Rocket, 39, and Peter Beck, 32, claimed their Rocket Lab is the first privately owned company in the southern hemisphere to make a successful space launch.

   Their rocket, named Atea-1 and carrying a 2-kilogram payload of nearly 23,000 messages to dead people from family members around the world, was expected to reach an altitude of 120 kilometres before falling into the Pacific Ocean.

   The blastoff from Great Mercury Island, 18 kilometres off the North Island's Coromandel Peninsula, was delayed more than seven-and-a-half hours by a technical problem which jammed the polymer and nitrous oxide hybrid fuel supply.

   Rocket was the first New Zealander to make a booking on Richard Branson's proposed Virgin Galactic first flight. Beck designed and demonstrated a rocket-propelled bicycle in his early 20s.  

They began their company three years ago planning to develop a series of Atea rockets that would make space more accessible to the global scientific community than conventional rockets at significantly lower cost.

   Greg Zilliac, an aerophysics engineer at the NASA Research Centre in California, was quoted in local media recently as saying a successful launch would be a significant accomplishment and seize the attention of the space industry and academics worldwide.