The payload from New Zealand's first home-grown space rocket is floating somewhere off the Coromandel coast following this afternoon's successful launch.
Rocket Lab's 6-metre-long, 60kg rocket Atea-1 was launched about 2.30pm from Great Mercury Island, watched by about 50 people.
It burned for 20 seconds or so, reaching its target speed of up to Mach 5, or 5000kmh, reaching at least 100km altitude and spending between 10 and 20 minutes in the sky before splashing down.
It is the first time a privately-owned rocket has been launched in the southern hemisphere.
Atea is the Maori word for space as the team wanted an indigenous name for the rocket. Today's rocket was named Manu Karere by the local Thames iwi, which means Bird Messenger.
The target area for the launch was about 50km northeast of the island. The team hope to pick the rocket's payload up within the next two days and physically recover its data.
Rocket Lab was now waiting for the payload's GPS signal to be picked up, company director Mark Rocket told NZPA.
That could depend on the waves or how buoyant the payload finally was when it splashed down, he said.
The team would not know how high the rocket reached, but with a new nose cone Mr Rocket speculated it could have reached as high as 150km.
That height was suborbital, but it was still considered to be space as there was no atmosphere. The International Space Station was about 300km above Earth, Mr Rocket said.
