Rocket Labs catches booster rocket with a helicopter so they can use it for more launches IN SPACE!!!

Space launch contender Rocket Lab has successfully demonstrated its peculiar method of capturing spent rocket boosters so they can be re-used: catching them with a helicopter as they fall.

The skies cleared today and the mission – dubbed “There and back again” – sent 34 satellites aloft after launching from New Zealand's Mahia Peninsula. The Electron booster used for the launch then returned to Earth beneath a parachute.

At 6,500 feet (just under 2km) above the ground, a Rocket Lab Sikorsky S-92 helicopter met the falling booster and "used a hook on a long line to capture the parachute line."

The attempt to make the catch looked like this, as seen from the 'copter as it started dangling its hook once it found the falling booster.

While the catch was made, flying with a rocket under a helicopter turned out to be a tad tricky thanks to what Rocket Lab has described as "different load characteristics than previously experienced in testing." But as the tweets below show, the mission still had a happy ending.

[link to www.theregister.com (secure)]