Rocket Lab to Catch a Scorching Hot Sikorsky S-92 Rocket Booster in the Air Friday [Look]

Rocket Lab moves its attempt to grab a launcher as it falls through the air from Thursday to Friday. A feat that might usher in a new age of more affordable and frequent light freight missions to space.

Most rockets are one-and-done, burning off their fuel in minutes and crashing into the water like corpses after placing their cargo into orbit around the Earth. Many of the boosters that may be reconditioned and reused must first be pulled out of the water following a deliberate splashdown.

Mashable said the company's first effort at rescuing one of its Electron rockets - a 59-foot workhorse for launching tiny satellites into space - before it bangs into the waves is "There and Back Again." The New Zealand-based company will execute this test no later than April 29.

Rocket Lab's Helicopter To Catch Rocket

According to Popular Mechanics, Rocket Lab commissioned the American-made twin-engine helicopter, Sikorsky S-92, to recover Electron rocket stages as they drift back to Earth's surface through two drogue parachutes. The grappling hook on the helicopter will catch one of the chute's threads and safely take the booster back home.

Rocket Lab had to make sure that the stages could handle re-entry into Earth's atmosphere for this to operate. They modified the boosters and added a thick heat shield to keep them safe from the scorching heat.

"Trying to catch a rocket as it falls back to Earth is no easy feat, we're absolutely threading the needle here, but pushing the limits with such complex operations is in our DNA," Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said in an April 5 statement.

The "There and Back Again" mission will be Rocket Lab's 26th Electron rocket launch. According to an IEEE Spectrum article, it has launched a total of 112 satellites. If the weather cooperates, the rocket will take off from one of the company's two launch pads on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand.

Electron rocket is 18 meters tall, approximately a fourth of the height of SpaceX's Falcon 9, New Scientist reported. However, Rocket Lab intends to follow in Elon Musk's footsteps by making its rockets reusable to save launch costs by capturing them mid-flight rather than landing on the ground or floating barges.

How to Watch Rocket Lab's Test

The two-hour launch window opens at 6:35 p.m. ET. The effort will shift to recapturing the rocket's first stage once it has delivered its cargo of 34 commercial satellites. The launch will be streamed live on Rocket Lab's website starting 20 minutes before liftoff.

Airborne recovery isn't a brand-new concept. The United States Air Force employed this technique to intercept the leftovers of spy satellites that were returning to Earth with compelling pictures of Soviet infrastructure. However, this is the first time it will be used to capture satellites to save money.

Rocket Lab experimented with parachuting their rockets back into the water on earlier launches, resulting in salt corrosion that rendered them unusable, and it recently captured a fake rocket with its helicopter.

Mid-air capture has been attempted previously, most notably with NASA's Genesis spacecraft in 2004, which crashed into the Utah desert after failing to open its parachute and ruining its precious solar wind samples.

Check out more news and information on Rocket Lab in Science Times.