Mahia, New Zealand. August 3, 2024– Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) (“Rocket Lab” or “the Company”), a global leader in launch services and space systems, today successfully launched its 51st Electron rocket and deployed a single satellite to low Earth orbit for Synspective, a Japanese Earth-imaging company.
The mission, named “Owl For One, One For Owl” in a nod to Synspective’s StriX satellites named after the genus for owls, lifted off at 04:39 am, August 3rd NZT (16:39 UTC, August 2nd) from Launch Complex 1, Rocket Lab’s private orbital launch site on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula. The missiondeployed the fifth of Synspective’s StriX SAR-imaging satellites to low Earth orbit. In addition to the launch service, Rocket Lab provided a custom Electron fairing to encapsulate the StriX satellite and also performed an advanced mid-mission maneuver with Electron’s Kick Stage to shield the satellite from the sun and reduce radiation exposure on its way to orbit.
Rocket Lab has been the sole launch provider for Synspective’s constellation to date. This mission was the fifth launch of a total of 16 launches booked on Electron for Synspective and the second launch for the Japanese company this year, after the “Owl Night Long” mission launched in March 2024. Most recently, Synspective booked ten dedicated Electron launches as part of a new multi-launch agreement announced in June 2024, with the launches in that new deal set to take place across 2025-2027.
Rocket Lab founder and CEO Sir Peter Beck says: “It’s wonderful to have launched our second mission for Synspective in five months as we continue our longstanding launch partnership. Electron is the ideal rocket for providing flexible, tailored, and direct access to orbit for constellation builders like Synspective, and I’m proud of the team for delivering this latest mission success.
The launch window for Rocket Lab’s next Electron mission will be announced in the coming days.
About Synspective
Synspective Inc., founded in 2018, develops and operates Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites and provides SAR data and analytics solutions. We aim to develop a constellation of 30 SAR satellites by the late 2020s, allowing us to create a new system that can observe changes anywhere on Earth. With a SAR satellite constellation that enables high-frequency and high-resolution Earth observation, Synspective delivers satellite data and various analytics solutions for disaster response and management, national security, and environmental monitoring.
Source: Rocket Lab
