Fasten Your Space Belts

| Scheduled for (UTC) | 2024-02-18 23:17 | |

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| | Scheduled for (NZDT) | 2024-02-19 12:17 | | Launch site | Rocket Lab LC-1B, Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand | | Booster recovery | No | | Launch vehicle | Electron + Curie | | Customer | BlackSky | | Payload | Kinéis 16-20 | | Mission success criteria | Successful deployment of spacecraft into LEO |

Livestreams

| Stream | Link | |

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| | Rocket Lab (official) | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv_Zw8UK3H0 | | Space Affairs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yl7hDb8ulM | | The Launch Pad | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrSDG-LDkCs |

Stats

• This will be the 2nd launch for Rocket Lab this year.
• This will be the 60th overall launch for Rocket Lab.

Payload info:

Rocket Lab mission page

NextSpaceflight:

BlackSky Gen-3 Mission 1

The first of five BlackSky Technology missions to deploy its new next-generation BlackSky Gen-3 satellites. The commercial constellation of Gen-3 satellites has the capability to produce imagery with 50-centimeter resolution and host multiple sensors, including shortwave infrared (SWIR). The improved resolution and enhanced spectral diversity of the Gen-3 satellites will expand BlackSky's ability to provide real-time information to its customers.

Previous mission: IoT 4 You and Me

Next mission: TBD

Please post small launch updates, discussions, and questions here! Also feel free to leave feedback or suggestions for the mod team. We’re a relatively new community, so feedback is very valuable!

Hopefully this is allowed!

I found it pretty interesting, Sir Peter Beck's insights into the space industry seem very "down-to-earth" and realistic.

IoT 4 You and Me

| Scheduled for (UTC) | 2024-02-08 20:43 | |

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| | Scheduled for (NZDT) | 2024-02-09 09:43 | | Launch site | Rocket Lab LC-1A, Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand | | Booster recovery | No | | Launch vehicle | Electron + Curie | | Customer | Kinéis | | Payload | Kinéis 16-20 | | Mission success criteria | Successful deployment of spacecraft into LEO |

Livestreams

| Stream | Link | |

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| | Rocket Lab (official) | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Al5hWmjoxQ | | Space Affairs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LymS8p38Q98 | | The Launch Pad | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t6_MoFqiT4 |

Stats

• This will be the 1st launch for Rocket Lab this year.
• This will be the 59th overall launch for Rocket Lab.

Payload info:

Rocket Lab mission page

NextSpaceflight:

Fourth batch of five satellites for the French Kinéis IoT constellation designed to operate with 25 nanosatellites of 30 kg each. The constellation will enable Kinéis, a company backed by private and public investors including the French government’s space agency CNES (Centre National d'Études Spatiales) and CLS (Collecte Localisation Satellites) an international space-based solutions provider, to improve its global IoT connectivity.

Previous mission: Owl The Way Up

Next mission: Fasten Your Space Belts

Please post small launch updates, discussions, and questions here! Also feel free to leave feedback or suggestions for the mod team. We’re a relatively new community, so feedback is very valuable!

Described by company leadership as a “nights-and-weekends” project, Rocket Lab has since partnered with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to deliver the first private mission to Venus. It would be the first such commercial endeavor, though not the first ever visit to Earth’s closest neighboring planet.

Armed with a device called a nephelometer, which helps study particles by analyzing how light interacts with them, the Rocket Lab-MIT probe is expected to collect data for approximately five minutes as it pierces the Venusian cloud layer. It then will “have a crack,” Beck said, at uncovering those floating signs of life.

“It is a privately-funded philanthropic mission, and so that’s where the nights-and-weekends come from,” he explained on the Space Minds podcast. But it is how the leader of a $13 billion company wants to spend his time and where he thinks there’s value.

“We’ve all got real jobs to do. But if you can go there and you don’t find life, I think that’s super interesting,” he added. “If you go there, and you did find life, that answers one of the biggest questions in our history … and you can pretty conclusively draw that life is going to be prolific throughout the universe.”

Source: NoLifeJordan69

Owl The Way Up

| Scheduled for (UTC) | 2024-12-21 14:13 | |

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| | Scheduled for (NZDT) | 2024-12-22 03:13 | | Launch site | Rocket Lab LC-1B, Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand | | Booster recovery | No | | Launch vehicle | Electron + Curie | | Customers | Synspective | | Payload | StriX satellite | | Mission success criteria | Successful deployment of spacecraft into Sun-Synchronous Orbit |

Livestreams

| Stream | Link | |

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| | Rocket Lab (official) | https://www.youtube.com/@RocketLabNZ/streams (scrub) | | Space Affairs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K18IPBBMxxE (scrub) | | The Launch Pad | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lgi4-3pKK4 |

Stats

• This will be the 16th launch for Rocket Lab this year.
• This will be the 58th overall launch for Rocket Lab.

Payload info:

Rocket Lab mission page

NextSpaceflight:

This is the second of a bulk buy of two Electron launches by Synspective to deliver their StriX satellites to low Earth orbit. StriX satellites can collect data with a ground resolution of 1-3m and a swath width of more than 10-30km. Each Electron launch will deliver 1 StriX satellite into orbit. This will be the overall 6th StriX satellite launched by Rocket Lab for Synspective.

Previous mission: Stonehenge

Next mission: IoT 4 You and Me

Please post small launch updates, discussions, and questions here! Also feel free to leave feedback or suggestions for the mod team. We’re a relatively new community, so feedback is very valuable!

https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/7501

Rocket Lab will launch a HASTE (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron) mission for a confidential customer from Launch Complex 2 at Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport within NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in 2024.

Liftoff is currently scheduled for 2024-12-14 00:45 UTC, or 2024-12-13 19:45 local time (EST).

Rocket Lab launched a pair of Electron rockets with 24 hours of each other Nov. 24, a first for the company.

One Electron lifted off from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 2 on Wallops Island, Virginia, at 1 a.m. Eastern. That launch used a suborbital version of the rocket, called Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron (HASTE), intended for use in hypersonic testing.

Rocket Lab followed the HASTE mission with an orbital launch of Electron from its Launch Complex 1B in New Zealand at 10:55 p.m. Eastern Nov. 24. The rocket successfully deployed into orbit a third set of five satellites for French company Kinéis, which is deploying a constellation to provide Internet of Things connectivity services.

The two launches marked the fastest turnaround time between launches in the company’s history, which previously had been about a week. The company added that this is also, to its knowledge, the first time a single launch operator carried out two launches in different hemispheres within 24 hours.

“That’s unprecedented capability in the small launch market and one we’re immensely proud to deliver at Rocket Lab,” Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab, said in a statement.

With these two launches, Rocket Lab has conducted 14 Electron launches so far this year. While the company originally projected as many as 22 launches this year, Beck said in a Nov. 12 earnings call that the company was maintaining revised guidance of 15 to 18 Electron launches for the year. “The customers are looking good, so I think we’ll be within that range,” he said.

Ice AIS Baby

| Scheduled for (UTC) | 2024-11-25 03:55 | |

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| | Scheduled for (NZDT) | 2024-11-25 16:55 | | Launch site | Rocket Lab LC-1B, Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand | | Booster recovery | No | | Launch vehicle | Electron + Curie | | Customer | Kinéis | | Payload | Kinéis 11-15 | | Mission success criteria | Successful deployment of spacecraft into desired orbit |

Livestreams

| Stream | Link | |

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| | Rocket Lab (official) | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i081vyh3WO0 | | Space Affairs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJmOFs5kZ0s | | The Launch Pad | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fps-ilnHsEM |

Stats

• This will be the 14th launch for Rocket Lab this year.
• This will be the 56th overall launch for Rocket Lab.

Payload info:

Rocket Lab mission page

NextSpaceflight:

Third batch of five satellites for the French Kinéis IoT constellation designed to operate with 25 nanosatellites of 30 kg each. The constellation will enable Kinéis, a company backed by private and public investors including the French government’s space agency CNES (Centre National d'Études Spatiales) and CLS (Collecte Localisation Satellites) an international space-based solutions provider, to improve its global IoT connectivity.

Previous mission: Leidos Mission 2 "HASTE A La Vista"

Next mission: Stonehenge

Please post small launch updates, discussions, and questions here! Also feel free to leave feedback or suggestions for the mod team. We’re a relatively new community, so feedback is very valuable!

Leidos Mission 2 "HASTE A La Vista"

Well folks, it's time for another Rocket Lab launch, suborbital this time!

| Scheduled for (UTC) | 2024-11-24 06:00 | |

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| | Scheduled for (local, EST) | 2024-11-24 01:00 | | Scheduled for (NZDT) | 2024-11-24 19:00 | | Launch site | Rocket Lab LC-2 (LP-0C), Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, USA | | Booster recovery | No | | Launch vehicle | Electron (suborbital HASTE variant) | | Customer | USA Department of Defense | | Payload | Undisclosed |

Livestreams

| Stream | Link | |

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| | Rocket Lab (official) | none | Space Affairs | https://www.youtube.com/user/SEL9000/streams | The Launch Pad | https://www.youtube.com/@TheLaunchPad/streams | WAI Plus | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxoSsks7hDc | Reality PC | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3xpCwY9ROc | pat o. | Stream 1, stream 2, stream 3 |

Stats

• This will be the 13th launch for Rocket Lab this year.
• This will be the 55th overall launch for Rocket Lab.

Payload info:

• Rocket Lab mission page
• Rocket Lab Leidos page
• FCC document
• NASA document
• NextSpaceflight
• NASASpaceflight article

The Leidos Mission 2 will be Rocket Lab’s second of four missions for the Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonics Test Bed (MACH-TB) program. The MACH-TB program was created by the Department of Defense (DoD) to reduce hypersonic risks and swiftly transition to innovative technologies. The payload is expected to be an experimental hypersonic glide body, although the details of the payload remain classified. The first Leidos mission for the MACH-TB program flew on June 17, 2023.

The booster for this mission is a Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron (HASTE), a modified Electron optimized for hypersonic testing using custom fairings and a modified kick stage. The rocket launches the payload on a suborbital trajectory, providing acceleration towards hypersonic speeds, or over five times the speed of sound.

Previous mission: Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes

Next mission: Ice AIS Baby

Please post small launch updates, discussions, and questions here! Also feel free to leave feedback or suggestions for the mod team. We’re a relatively new community, so feedback is very valuable!

Defense giant Lockheed Martin announced Nov. 19 that its new mid-size satellite platform will make its orbital debut next year aboard a Firefly Aerospace rocket.

The LM 400 satellite bus — roughly the size of a household refrigerator — represents Lockheed’s bid to capture a sweet spot in the satellite market: missions requiring more power and payload capacity than small satellites can provide, but not demanding the complexity of traditional large satellites.

RocketLab have posted an opening for a Recovery Engineering Intern:

As a Recovery Engineering Intern based at Rocket Lab’s site in Long Beach, California, you will have the opportunity to support the Neutron Recovery Team in designing Recovery and Marine Transportation hardware for Neutron.

Another confirmation that they are planning drone ship landings for Neutron in addition to RTLS landings.