Rocket Lab launches five IoT satellites for Kinéis on Nov. 25. Photo: Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab hit the milestone of launching two missions from two continents in less than 24 hours between Sunday and Monday.
The milestone kicked off with a mission from Launch Complex 2 at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Sunday at 1 a.m. EST. Then, about 22 hours later, Rocket Lab followed it up with a launch from New Zealand delivering five satellites to orbit for the Kinéis IoT constellation.
This was Rocket Lab’s fastest turnaround between launches and broke the company’s record for the number of Electron launches in one year. Rocket Lab set a new record of 12 launches earlier this month, and has now completed 14 Electron launches for this year.
“Two successful launches less than 24 hours apart from pads in different hemispheres. That’s unprecedented capability in the small launch market and one we’re immensely proud to deliver at Rocket Lab,” CEO Peter Beck commented.
Rocket Lab did not provide specifics on the first mission, but NASA Wallops Flight Facility confirmed there was a suborbital launch scheduled in that time frame. Rocket Lab supports suborbital launch with HASTE — Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron. Leidos may have been the customer for the mission, as Rocket Lab has a launch contract with Leidos for four HASTE missions between 2024 and 2025.
The New Zealand mission, dubbed ‘Ice AIS Baby,’ was the third of five missions Rocket Lab is scheduled to deliver for French constellation operator Kinéis. AIS is a reference to the automatic identification system (AIS) data the satellites will collect. Kinéis confirmed post-launch the mission was successful.
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