This is great news, reusing rockets is a big part of how SpaceX are so incredibly competitive, so it's good to hear there are multiple companies doing it now.
this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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This wasn’t actually a reused rocket. In this instance “return-to-flight” refers to the fact that this was Rocket Lab’s first flight since they were grounded in September, due to a launch failure.
The anomaly in September was quite amazing, and they published an explanation here.
That said, it is great that RL is reusing some of their rockets, and very exciting to see them building a larger reusable vehicle in Neutron.
If I remember correctly, they haven't reflown an entire booster yet, but they have reflown a Rutherford engine. I believe they are working towards booster reuse with Electron, though I haven't heard much recently.
True, they’ve recovered at least one booster fully intact (since ditching the helicopter-hook idea), but no reflights yet. I guess they want to do some very thorough structural validation before attempting to refly.
Plus, their launch cadence hasn’t exactly been rapid over the last 2-3 years. Hopefully they can start picking up the pace and that’ll in turn accelerate the progress of their Electron reuse program.
That's a really cool read, thanks for linking it!