Booster of New Zealand rocket found, payload still missing

Dec 1, 2009, 5:24 GMT

   Wellington - A booster from the first New Zealand rocket launched into space was recovered from the sea on Tuesday, but the nose cone containing scientific instruments with vital information about the project remained missing.

   A fisherman spotted the stage one booster floating off Monday's launch site on Great Mercury Island, which sits off the North Island's Coromandel Peninsula, and owners Mark Rocket, 39, and Peter Beck, 32, asked boatmen to look out for the nose cone.

   The pair, who claimed their Rocket Lab was the first privately owned company in the southern hemisphere to make a successful space launch, said they had not picked up the global positioning signal it was programmed to emit.

   Rocket, a space nut who legally changed his surname, said the booster that provided the main thrust to launch the 6-metre rocket 100 kilometres into space would provide valuable data about how the engine burnt.

   He said the nose cone and its 2-kilogram payload of delicate instruments was likely to be 'bobbing in the ocean' about 50 kilometres off the island.

   Monday's launch was delayed by seven hours when a fault jammed the polymer and nitrous oxide hybrid fuel supply.