wrote:


"Rocket Lab, a California-based spaceflight company with its roots in New Zealand,
just launched its two-stage Electron rocket for the first time. The small launch
vehicle successfully lifted off from Rocket Lab's Launch Complex 1 on the Mahia
Peninsula of New Zealand at 12:20 a.m. ET on Thursday May 25—4:20 p.m. New Zealand
time. The successful liftoff marks the first time an orbital-class rocket has been
launched from a private launch facility."

See:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/spac...-first-flight/


It did not, however, reach orbit and it was expected to, so there's a
failure investigation going on.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw