HASTE launch vehicle preparation Credit: Rocket Lab
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Rocket Lab has developed a containerized launch system for its Electron and HASTE rockets, an effort to make it easier to operate the vehicles from locations beyond the company’s permanent launch sites and give military customers more options for orbital and hypersonic test missions.
The system, called GHOST, short for Global Hypersonic & Orbital Spaceport Technology, packages the equipment needed to support a launch — including ground-support hardware and range-control systems — into standard shipping containers that can be transported and installed at new sites.
Rocket Lab said the same infrastructure can support both Electron, its small orbital rocket, and HASTE, an Electron-derived suborbital vehicle used to carry hypersonic test articles and other experimental payloads to high speeds and altitudes.
The first GHOST installation will be at the Pacific Spaceport Complex-Alaska on Kodiak Island, where Rocket Lab plans to establish two pads under a new Launch Complex 4. The company said the system is expected to make its operational debut there with a suborbital mission in 2027.
