A Rocket Lab spokeswoman said the firm had nothing to add to the information provided in the NRO’s launch materials - which offer no detail about tonight’s payload but do look back on the agency’s last launch, which involved a rocket made by the United Launch Alliance (a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture) saying, “In September 2023, NRO launched the NROL-107 Silentbarker mission, a joint NRO and US Space Force (USSF) Space Domain Awareness (SDA) mission to meet Department of Defence and Intelligence Community space protection needs.”
The launch materials added: “The NRO is the best in the world at providing overhead intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to more than half a million government users - including every member of the intelligence community, two dozen domestic agencies, our nation’s military, lawmakers and decision-makers.”
The mission launching today is dubbed “NROL-123″ by the NRO, while Rocket Lab is calling it “Live & Let Fly”.
It will be Rocket Lab’s fifth launch for the NRO, but the first from the US (the other four were from Launch Complex 1 at Mahia in Hawke’s Bay). It will be the Kiwi-American firm’s fourth launch from US soil. Founder Peter Beck says US Government customers prefer to keep things local - specifically at Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 2, which sits inside Nasa’s Wallops Island facility in Virginia.
Rocket Lab formed a dedicated military and intelligence subsidiary, the US-registered Rocket Lab National Security LLC, in December 2022, smoothing the regulatory path for Defence-related work.
The firm’s larger Neutron rocket, due to stage its first test launch by year’s end, will launch exclusively from Virginia.
Last month, a Congressional staff memo accused Rocket Lab of misrepresenting Neutron’s launch readiness, according to a Tech Crunch report.
Rocket Lab told the Herald it was a “concerted effort to stymie competition”.
The firm released various photos and updates on Neutron’s progress with its latest quarterly financial report last month.
In the build-up to the NRO launch, Rocket Lab has released new overhead images of the Neutron launchpad (being constructed next door to Launch Complex II at Wallops) and the nearby Neutron integration facility, also under construction.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
