Watch Rocket Lab launch sharp-eyed radar satellite to orbit on Aug. 11 (Image Credit: Space.com)
Rocket Lab will launch an Earth-observing radar satellite for the California company Capella Space on Sunday morning (Aug. 11), and you can watch the action live.
An Electron vehicle is scheduled to lift off from Rocket Lab‘s New Zealand site on Sunday at 7:15 a.m. EDT (1115 GMT; 11:15 p.m. local New Zealand time).
Rocket Lab will stream the launch live, beginning 30 minutes before liftoff. You can watch it here at Space.com, if the company makes the stream available, as expected.
Rocket Lab calls Sunday’s mission “A Sky Full of SARS,” which is a nod to the payload — the Acadia-3 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite. If all goes according to plan, the 59-foot-tall (18 meters) Electron will deploy Acadia-3 about 57 minutes after liftoff, into a circular orbit 382 miles (615 kilometers) above Earth.
“A Sky Full of SARS” will be Rocket Lab’s fifth launch overall for San Francisco-based Capella Space, whose satellites return sharp imagery of Earth in all weather conditions, day or night — a key benefit of SAR tech.
“Capella Space provides easy access to frequent and timely information affecting dozens of industries worldwide, including defense and intelligence, supply chain, insurance, maritime and others,” Rocket Lab wrote in the press kit for Sunday’s mission, which you can find here.
“Its market-leading SAR satellites are matched with unparalleled data infrastructure to quickly deliver reliable global insights that sharpen our understanding of the changing world — improving decisions about commerce, conservation and security on Earth,” Rocket Lab added.
Related: Rocket Lab launches a commercial radar-imaging satellite in dramatic night liftoff (video)
“A Sky Full of SARS” will be the 10th launch of the year for Rocket Lab, and the company’s 52nd orbital mission overall.
Rocket Lab aims to make Electron’s first stage reusable; it has recovered boosters from the sea multiple times to date and has even reflown an engine on a previous mission. But the press kit for “A Sky Full of SARS” doesn’t mention anything about a recovery operation, so we can assume that’s not happening on Sunday.
