Rocket Lab on track for record launches

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Rocket Lab will launch a record-equalling mission from Māhia later today.

Scheduled for lift-off at 6.30pm, the mission — titled We Will Never Desert You — is for American space tech company Capella Space, a provider of commercial Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery.

We Will Never Desert You will be Rocket Lab’s third launch for Capella in 2023 and second launch in a multi-launch contract of four missions to deploy Capella’s new Acadia satellites to low Earth orbit.

As Capella’s sole launch provider in 2023 to build out the company’s Earth-imaging constellation, earlier missions in 2023 for the company included We Love The Nightlife, launched from Launch Complex 1 in Māhia in August , and Stronger Together, launched from Launch Complex 2 in Wallops, Virginia, in March.

Each Capella Space mission will also be supported by a Rocket Lab manufactured motorised lightband — separation systems for each satellite to attach to and deploy from Electron once launched to orbit.

We Will Never Desert You will be Rocket Lab’s ninth launch this year, equalling the annual launch record of nine missions achieved in 2022.

Rocket Lab is on track to launch 15 missions in 2023. The latest mission is the United States-based company’s 41st rocket launch.

Back-up launch dates are available until October 2.