Hayden Potter/Supplied
An Ilyushin Il-76 freighter aircraft coming in to land at Auckland International Airport on Thursday.
An enormous Soviet-era freighter touched down in Auckland on Thursday night carrying a satellite destined to be launched into orbit by New Zealand-founded space company Rocket Lab.
The Ilyushin Il-76, owned by Russian air charter provider Volga-Dnepr Airlines, landed at Auckland International Airport just before 8pm.
Auckland Airport said in a social media post it was excited to welcome the “unusual visitor”, with its “glass chin” housing the navigator.
The four engine aircraft, designed in the late 1960s, has a wingspan of 50 meters, can carry up to 50 tonnes of cargo and has a maximum volume of 230 cubic metres.
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Air traffic website Flightradar24 says, while the better known six-engined Antonov gets a lot of attention, the Ilyushin IL-76 was an “unsung hero of logistics”.
It is still used by a number of operators for civilian cargo missions and is popular with air forces, it says.
AUCKLAND AIRPORT/Supplied
The aircraft arrived from Tokyo via Cairns.
A Rocket Lab spokeswoman said the aircraft was carrying a “synthetic aperture radar satellite” for Japanese Earth observation company Synspective, for one of Rocket Lab’s upcoming missions.
The satellite is capable of delivering images that can detect millimetre-level changes to the Earth’s surface from space, regardless of weather conditions and at any time of the day or night.
Rocket Lab previously launched a satellite for Synspective in December 2020, she said.
The aircraft arrived from Tokyo via Cairns and is due to depart Auckland at 8pm Friday.
Its arrival comes at a time of heightened tension at the Ukrainian border, where Russia has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops, fueling fears of an invasion.
Earlier in the week Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said if there was activity by Russia in Ukraine that New Zealand believed was a breach of Ukraine’s sovereignty, there were measures the Government could take, for example, relating to aid, development programmes and the ability to travel into New Zealand.
Hayden Potter/Supplied
The Ilyushin Il-76 freighter aircraft is due to depart Auckland at 8pm Friday.
A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said had the Ilyushin IL-76 of been a state aircraft it would have required state approval from the Government to land in New Zealand.
A cargo aircraft operated under a civilian company in New Zealand would be “absolutely normal”, he said.
A spokeswoman for Airways said it was up to an aircraft operator to ensure that they were compliant with all New Zealand and international regulations and laws.
A freight forwarder Stuff spoke to said chartering such an aircraft could cost well over $1 million.
