LAS VEGAS — Rocket Lab launched the fifth radar imaging satellite for Japanese company Synspective Aug. 2, continuing work with its largest commercial customer.
An Electron lifted off from Pad B of Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 at 9:39 a.m. Eastern. The rocket’s kick stage deployed the StriX spacecraft into a planned 543-kilometer orbit inclined at 43 degrees about an hour later.
The satellite is the fifth synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite launched by Tokyo-based Synspective, but the first in a third generation of spacecraft. “The upgraded synthetic aperture radar sensor will provide images with even higher resolution and wide-area imaging,” said Toshihiro Obata, head of the company’s technology strategy office, in a pre-launch statement, although he did not elaborate on those capabilities.
The satellite is also the company’s first to go into a mid-inclination orbit rather than a sun-synchronous orbit. That orbit, he said, will “enable high-frequency imaging and imaging from multiple directions” of locations in low- and mid-latitude regions, at the expense of not being able to observe locations at high latitudes.
Synspective has launched all five of its satellites on Electron, dating back to 2020. A sixth launch is scheduled for later this year, followed by a set of 10 launches from 2025 through 2027 under a contract between Rocket Lab and Synspective announced June 17. Rocket Lab did not disclose the value of the contract but said it was its largest single launch contract to date.
Shortly after signing the launch contract, Synspective announced it raised 7 billion yen ($48 million) in a Series C round. That funding, the company said, would go towards mass production of its satellites, with a goal of deploying as many as 30 satellites by the end of the decade.
“It’s wonderful to have launched our second mission for Synspective in five months as we continue our longstanding launch partnership,” Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab, said in a post-launch statement. “Electron is the ideal rocket for providing flexible, tailored and direct access to orbit for constellation builders like Synspective.”
Synspective was not the original customer for this Electron launch. Rocket Lab originally announced that Capella Space, another SAR satellite operator, was going to fly one of its Acadia spacecraft on the launch, then scheduled for July 20. However, a few days before the launch Rocket Lab stated that Capella Space asked to delay the launch to perform more tests of the spacecraft.
The launch was the ninth this year for Rocket Lab, near the company’s record of most Electron launches in a year at 10. However, the company is behind the pace needed to achieve the goal it announced earlier in the year of as many as 22 launches. Company executives said in recent months that customer delays would likely cause it to fall short of that mark.
Rocket Lab is scheduled to report its second quarter financial results after the markets close Aug. 8.
