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WASHINGTON — Rocket Lab launched a radar-imaging satellite for Japanese company Synspective on June 26, a flight delayed by a responsive space mission.

The Electron rocket lifted off from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 1:43 p.m. Eastern on a mission called “10 Owl of 10” by the company. The payload, a StriX satellite, separated from the rocket’s kick stage 56 minutes later into a 552-kilometer orbit inclined at 42 degrees.

The launch was the 10th Electron mission to carry a Synspective satellite. The Japanese company has relied exclusively on Electron to deploy its satellites and has contracts for 17 more Electron launches. Synspective also has agreements to launch seven spacecraft on future SpaceX rideshare missions.

The launch was scheduled for as early as June 17. However, Rocket Lab said late June 16 that the launch date “is being adjusted to conduct additional checkouts before launch,” without elaborating.

Instead, Rocket Lab performed a responsive launch mission for the U.S. Space Force’s Victus Haze program. The launch took place June 19, also from Launch Complex 1, but it was more than 72 hours before the Space Force or Rocket Lab announced the launch. There were no eyewitness reports of the launch from the remote location, although the payload and upper stage from the launch appeared in the Space Force’s Space-Track database a day later, before the formal announcement of the mission.

The launch was the 12th Electron mission of 2026, including three flights of the HASTE suborbital variant. The most recent HASTE launch took place June 11 from Launch Complex 2 in Virginia. The mission, code-named “Curveball,” resulted in the rocket’s second stage and kick stage reaching a very low orbit and thus being cataloged in Space-Track, although they likely reentered within about a day.

The payload itself was not cataloged, and its fate is not known. Rocket Lab did not announce the launch in advance, and on its website, the launch is listed with no details, including its launch date.

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WASHINGTON — NASA has selected Rocket Lab to launch a pair of science missions on three Electron rockets in 2027.

NASA announced June 25 it selected Rocket Lab to launch its Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer, or PolSIR, and Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor-2, or TSIS-2, missions on Electron rockets.

PolSIR consists of two 16U cubesats built by Blue Canyon Technologies that will measure the rise and fall of ice crystals in tropical clouds, as well as how those changes in ice affect storm development. The satellites will operate in separate orbits, each inclined at 52 degrees, allowing them to pass over the same area several hours apart to measure changes over the course of each day.

TSIS-2 is a spacecraft that will be the successor to TSIS-1, an instrument mounted on the exterior of the International Space Station. The spacecraft, built by General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems, carries instruments to measure the amount of solar energy entering Earth’s atmosphere.

The PolSIR spacecraft will launch on back-to-back Electrons from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand no earlier than June 2027. TSIS-2 will launch on an Electron from Launch Complex 1 in early 2027.

TSIS-2 was originally expected to launch on a Falcon 9 as part of a rideshare mission with other NASA and commercial satellites. The agency did not disclose why it moved TSIS-2 to Electron, but that mission is several years behind its original schedule because of what NASA once described as “challenges” with the spacecraft vendor.

The awards were made under NASA’s Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare, or VADR, contract vehicle for procuring launches of small satellites. NASA has repeatedly declined to disclose the value of VADR awards, stating that the task orders used under the contract contain company proprietary information.

“Electron has become synonymous with reliability, precise orbital accuracy and on-demand launch capability, and we’ve been delivering this for NASA missions for almost a decade. We’re proud to deliver this once again for PolSIR and TSIS-2,” Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab, said in a statement.

In addition to PolSIR and TSIS-2, Rocket Lab has an agreement to launch NASA’s Aspera astrophysics smallsat mission, also through the VADR contract. It is expected to launch later this year.

Rocket Lab is separately preparing to launch LOXSAT, a mission to test cryogenic fluid management technologies for NASA through the agency’s Tipping Point technology demonstration program. The LOXSAT mission, led by Eta Space, uses a Rocket Lab Photon spacecraft and is slated to launch later this year.

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WASHINGTON — Rocket Lab launched a spacecraft for the U.S. Space Force to begin a military exercise focused on rapidly identifying and characterizing potential threats in space.

The company on June 19 launched the Victus Haze spacecraft, known as “Victus Haze Puma,” aboard an Electron rocket from the company’s launch site in Mahia, New Zealand. The satellite was developed under a $32 million contract awarded by the Space Force in 2024 and is one of two spacecraft participating in the Victus Haze mission.

The spacecraft was placed into a sun-synchronous orbit and will now undergo commissioning before beginning rendezvous and proximity operations, or RPO, with a spacecraft operated by Colorado-based startup True Anomaly.

“With launch complete, the team will now complete on-orbit checkout and vehicle commissioning, after which RPO operations begin,” Space Systems Command said in a June 22 statement. “During these operations, the teams operating both the Rocket Lab and the True Anomaly space vehicles will conduct a variety of scenarios, demonstrating space domain Awareness and characterization capabilities, each in dynamic engagements with the other.”

Victus Haze is the fourth demonstration under the Space Force’s Tactically Responsive Space, or TacRS, program, which seeks to prove that commercial providers can rapidly launch spacecraft on military timelines while also performing increasingly sophisticated missions once in orbit.

The exercise builds on lessons from the 2023 Victus Nox demonstration, when the Space Force and launch provider Firefly Aerospace launched a satellite within 27 hours of receiving a launch order. While Victus Nox focused primarily on rapid launch, Victus Haze expands the concept to include the ability to quickly deploy spacecraft capable of maneuvering, inspecting and characterizing objects in orbit.

The broader goal is to transform responsive launch from a demonstration effort into an operational military capability. Space Force officials have argued that future conflicts may require the rapid replacement of damaged satellites, deployment of new sensors or launch of spacecraft to investigate suspicious activity in orbit on timelines measured in days rather than months or years.

Under the Victus Haze architecture, the Space Force selected Rocket Lab and True Anomaly to provide separate maneuvering spacecraft that would conduct rendezvous and proximity operations after launch.

The Rocket Lab spacecraft is expected to conduct operations with Jackal-004, a True Anomaly spacecraft already in orbit, rather than waiting for a dedicated Victus Haze vehicle that had been expected to launch separately on a Firefly Aerospace rocket.

Jackal launched May 3 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare mission carrying South Korea’s CAS500-2 Earth observation satellite. The spacecraft will maneuver and interact with Rocket Lab’s vehicle with during the demonstration.

True Anomaly received a $30 million contract for Victus Haze.

Prior to the Rocket Lab launch, the Space Force’s Space Safari program office directed the company to a “heightened readiness posture” before activating the team into alert status.

Rocket Lab highlighted several milestones achieved during the exercise. After receiving the formal notice-to-launch order from the Space Force’s Space Safari program office, Rocket Lab launched its Electron rocket within 16 hours and 42 minutes, beating the mission’s 24-hour responsive launch requirement.

The company’s guidance, navigation and control team took roughly four hours to calculate a final trajectory to a previously undisclosed orbit, update flight software and coordinate ground stations ahead of launch. Once in orbit, Rocket Lab completed commissioning of its spacecraft in 37 hours and 36 minutes, allowing it to begin orbital maneuvers more than 34 hours ahead of Victus Haze’s 72-hour operational deadline.

“Victus Haze set out to demonstrate our ability to respond to irresponsible behavior on orbit under operationally realistic conditions, and we are doing just that, leveraging commercial partnerships to maximize flexibility and minimize cost,” said Col. Bryon McClain, acting Space Force portfolio acquisition executive for Space Combat Power.

True Anomaly said in a statement that Jackal is “fully operational and ready to execute rendezvous and proximity operations.”