The company behind New Zealand's first home-grown space rocket launch is hoping for a second launch early next year.
Yesterday's launch of the 6-metre-long, 60kg rocket Atea-1 from Great Mercury Island, off the Coromandel coast, was hailed as a great success by the company Rocket Lab.
The rocket, dubbed Manu Karere, or Bird Messenger, reached its target speed of up to Mach 5, or 5000kmh, and flew to an altitude of at least 100km before splashing down.
The target area for the launch was about 50km northeast of the island. The team hope to pick the rocket's payload, once its GPS signal has been picked up, within two days.
The launch was the culmination of a 15-year dream for company founder and technical director Peter Beck.
Rocket Lab director Mark Rocket told NZPA the next step after recovering the payload and analysing the data would be planning for the next launch, which could be early next year.
Rocket Lab was a space launch business and there was massive interest in the company's products from around the world, he said.
"It's not trivial sending something into space. This is a huge technological leap for New Zealand."
Yesterday's launch was delayed by seven hours when an fuel line aerocoupler froze, tethering the rocket to its launch pad.
A helicopter was sent to Whitianga to pick up another hydraulic coupling - worth about $6 - from an engineering supplier.
While the Atea-1 is New Zealand's first home-grown and privately-funded space rocket it is not the first to be launched from these shores.
In 1963 an imported rocket was launched to a height of about 75km to conduct upper atmospheric research in a joint venture between Canterbury University's physics department and the Royal New Zealand Air Force.
It was launched from Birdlings Flat, 44km southeast of Christchurch, spent about 2 1/2 minutes airborne and landed in the sea.
NZPA