Rocket launch from Hawaiʻi carrying UH payload experiences anomaly

Still from a short video of the rocket launched from Kaua‘i on 03 November 2015. Image courtesy of UH.

The U.S. Navy along with the U.S. Air Force’s Operationally Responsive Space Office, in partnership with Sandia National Laboratories, the University of Hawaiʻi’s Hawaiʻi Space Flight Laboratory, the Pacific Missile Range Facility and Aerojet Rocketdyne Corp. launched the first rocket from Hawaiʻi. After take-off, the experimental launch vehicle experienced an anomaly. ORS is currently assessing the cause.

The rocket was launched from the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands, Kauaʻi, through a mission known as ORS-4. The mission was sponsored by the Space and Missile Systems Center’s Operationally Responsive Space Office and was the first launch of the Super Strypi launch system. The rocket was carrying UH’s hyperspectral imager as the primary payload, along with 12 cubesats in an integrated payload stack.

Read more about it and watch the videos at the UH System News and KITV4; read more about it in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and the Pacific Business News.