This time, a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter hovering in the area met the booster midair at an altitude of 6,500 feet, dragging a cable with a grappling hook across the line between the drogue and main parachutes. But on those missions, the boosters splashed in the ocean and were then pulled out for examination. Rocket Lab had demonstrated on three earlier launches that Electron boosters can survive re-entry. Competitors like Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance, and companies in China, are similarly developing rockets that would be at least partially reusable. SpaceX is designing its next-generation super rocket, Starship, to be entirely reusable. The second stages of the Falcon 9 (as well as Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket) are still discarded, typically burning up while re-entering Earth’s atmosphere. SpaceX pioneered a new age in reusable rockets and now regularly lands the first stages of its Falcon 9 rockets and flies them over and over. “So the economics for us are really good. “Eighty percent of the costs or thereabouts of the rocket is actually in the first stage,” Mr. Reusing all or part of one helps lower the cost of delivering payloads to space and could speed the pace of launching by reducing the number of rockets that need to be manufactured. Rocket Lab’s booster catch is the latest advance in an industry where rockets used to be expensive single-use throwaways. The trilogy of Hobbit movies by director Peter Jackson was shot in New Zealand. This one was called “There and Back Again,” a nod to the recovery of the booster as well as the subtitle of J.R.R. Rocket Lab gives most of its missions whimsical names. “It’s still my hope that you’ll see this vehicle back on the pad again,” he said. Beck did not rule out the possibility that it could be reused. Eventually, the company would like the helicopter to carry a caught booster all the way back to land and prevent damage from salt water.

A Rocket Lab ship pulled the booster out of the water.

Rocket copter