Replace for 11 p.m. ET on June 30: Rocket Lab tried to launch “The Grain Goddess Gives” mission at 9 p.m. EDT on June 30 however aborted the try on the final second. It is unclear in the mean time what prompted the abort or when the corporate will attempt to fly once more.
Rocket Lab will launch a Japanese Earth-observing radar satellite tv for pc to orbit tonight (June 30), and you’ll watch the motion reside.
You can watch the launch live here at Space.com courtesy of Rocket Lab, or directly via the company. Protection will start about half-hour earlier than liftoff.
Japan-based iQPS is constructing a constellation of 36 satellites in low Earth orbit that examine Earth utilizing high-resolution artificial aperture radar (SAR). SAR spacecraft can peer by clouds and collect information at night time in addition to in the course of the day.
Tonight’s launch, which Rocket Lab calls “The Grain Goddess Gives,” would be the eighth, out of a complete of 15, that it’s going to carry out to assemble iQPS’ constellation.
If all goes in accordance with plan tonight, Electron will deploy the iQPS satellite tv for pc — which is nicknamed Mikura-I, after a Japanese goddess related to abundance and prosperity — about 50 minutes after liftoff, right into a round orbit 357 miles (575 kilometers) above Earth.
“The Grain Goddess Gives” will likely be Rocket Lab’s 92nd mission thus far and its thirteenth of 2026 already. The overwhelming majority of those launches have concerned the 59-foot-tall (18-meter-tall) Electron, which provides small satellites devoted rides to orbit. A small quantity have been carried out by HASTE , a suborbital model of Electron that helps clients take a look at hypersonic applied sciences.
Tonight’s launch will come only a day after Rocket Lab made a giant enterprise transfer: On Monday (June 29), Rocket Lab introduced that it is buying the communications firm Iridium for $8 billion.
“By combining our launch functionality and satellite tv for pc manufacturing with @IridiumComm’s international satellite tv for pc communications community and uncommon spectrum, Rocket Lab turns into a completely built-in, self-launching, tier-1 house energy, delivering important communications functionality to hundreds of thousands of customers worldwide,” Rocket Lab said via X on Monday.
