Screenshot. Falcon 9 launches from Cape Canaveral, 15 September 2025. Photo: Supplied / NASA / YouTube
One small step for SpaceX, one giant leap for space propulsion dreams in New Zealand.
One of Elon Musk's Falcon 9 rockets, bearing a first-ever experiment built in Lower Hutt, has lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The experiment, called Hēki, will be attached to the outside of the International Space Station (ISS), a first for this country.
Scores of scientists and others watched the launch on a screen at a Victoria University facility in Lower Hutt this morning.
"T minus 10, nine, eight..." went the controller.
At the pronouncement "and liftoff, go Falcon, go Cygnus," the crowd applauded.
In a blast of smoke and flame, at 10.11am Lower Hutt time, 6.11pm in Florida, the rocket went up, then raced into space, bearing its Kiwi payload.
Photo: Supplied / NASA / YouTube
Professor Nick Long, director of the Robinson Research Institute that put Hēki together, was buzzing.
"I was nervous, I was definitely a bit nervous."
He and others had waited a long time for this - five years building the suitcase-sized Hēki which RNZ profiled a year ago then months spent waiting as delays and damage to the "space freighter" called Cygnus it is hitch hiking on (itself the largest ever, built by Northrop Grumman, going up for the first time) kept pushing back the launch date.
Hēki, a powerful superconductor electric rocket, was assembled in Seaview, Lower Hutt. File photo. Photo: Reece Baker / RNZ
"It's a real milestone," said Long, known as the grandfather of superconductor research in NZ.
"Obviously, we weren't in control today. It was about, you know, having our experiment get up there to the space station."
That depended on NASA.
"Just for us to see that it's gone up there and it's on its way, and we look forward in a couple of weeks to being able to operate the experiment."
Hēki is a unique test in space to determine if superconductor magnet technology can propel spacecraft more efficiently than current technology.
The project has government funding. Dr Shane Reti, Minister of Science, Innovation, and Technology, watching the launch, was chuffed.
Hēki uses superconductor magnet propulsion technology. Photo: Reece Baker / RNZ
"Oh, this is very exciting, I mean, we have some unique New Zealand technology actually going up now to be road-tested in space," Reti said.
"That's pretty impressive to think that we're sitting alongside other international experiments."
On the big screen, Randy Pollock, the Robinson Research Institute's chief scientist/engineer for space research, beamed in, revealing that another agency he once worked for, NASA, was initially nervous about putting such powerful magnets on the ISS.
Robinson Research Institute's Randy Pollock (left) and Nick Long. File photo. Photo: RNZ / REECE BAKER
"There will be surprises, but I think the team's ready for them," Pollock told the crowd.
"One of our biggest challenges was convincing NASA to fly something that is this outside of anything they expected.
"We had to start by teaching them, working with them to figure out how to handle an electromagnet this powerful within their normal design requirements."
Screenshot. View of the ground from Falcon 9, 15 September 2025. Photo: Supplied / NASA / YouTube
On the screen, views back along the rocket showed the parts separating, the first stage dropping off to be recovered and reused.
Over the next fortnight or so, Hēki will travel up, be plugged in by a robotic arm, be put through its paces, and then start sending data back to Earth.
Back on Earth, Long has cosmically high hopes for what they will demonstrate.
"It's a technology that can be scaled up and used in interplanetary spacecraft," he said.
Screenshot. Falcon 9 booster rocket returns to Earth, 15 September 2025. Photo: Supplied / NASA / YouTube
"So the dream really is to have a New Zealand technology, you know, powering spacecraft, maybe to Mars, maybe to the moon, maybe to other planets."
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