New Zealand successfully launched a rocket into orbit on Sunday, becoming the 11th country to achieve the feat. Rocket Lab, a California-based aerospace manufacturer, fired the unmanned Electron rocket from Māhia Peninsula on Sunday. The launch vehicle was carrying three small commercial satellites, including one for weather monitoring and another for earth imaging, according to the Associated Press. Celebrating the launch, Rocket Lab — which was founded by Peter Beck, a New Zealander, in 2006 — called the achievement the “beginning of a new era in commercial access to space.”“It’s absolutely beautiful,” Beck told SpaceNews after the launch.“It puts us into a really good position to really deliver on what we said many years ago, that we’re here to open up space for business.”

Source: Huffington Post January 21, 2018 14:37 UTC