WASHINGTON — Rocket Lab launched a spacecraft for one Japanese radar imaging company Oct. 14, just days after signing a contract for additional launches for another.
An Electron rocket lifted off from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 12:33 p.m. Eastern. The payload, a StriX synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging satellite for Synspective, deployed from the rocket’s kick stage about 50 minutes after liftoff. The satellite was placed into its intended orbit at an altitude of 583 kilometers and an inclination of 42 degrees.
The mission was Rocket Lab’s seventh launch for Synspective since 2020 but its first since December 2024. All of Synspective’s SAR satellites launched to date have flown on Electron.
Synspective said the spacecraft is the first of its third generation of satellites. “Building upon our accumulated operational experience and technological expertise, we have achieved significant advancements in observation performance, reliability and scalability,” Motoyuki Arai, Synspective’s founder and chief executive, said in a statement. The company did not disclose details about the improvements in the new generation.
Synspective plans to deploy a constellation of 30 satellites by 2030 to provide frequent global coverage. Most of those satellites will be launched by Electron through a backlog of 20 launches in the coming years, including a contract for 10 additional missions signed Sept. 30.
While Synspective has exclusively used Electron so far, it has signed with other launch providers for future missions. The company reached a contract earlier this year with SpaceX to launch two satellites on rideshare missions and in July signed a deal with launch services provider Exolaunch for 10 satellites starting in 2027.
The Synspective launch came a week after Rocket Lab signed a new launch contract with iQPS, another Japanese company developing a SAR constellation. The new contract covers three launches starting no earlier than 2026 and adds to an existing backlog of four missions.
Electron has launched five iQPS missions to date, the first in 2023. The other four took place between March and August this year as part of a pair of four-launch contracts between Rocket Lab and iQPS signed in February. Rocket Lab said its next iQPS launch is planned for November.
“In 2025, we successfully deployed four satellites, QPS-SAR-9 through QPS-SAR-12, into their planned orbits aboard Electron. This outcome was exactly as we had anticipated, and it further reaffirmed our confidence in the rocket’s reliability,” Shunsuke Onishi, iQPS chief executive, said in a statement about the new contract.
The Synspective launch was the 15th Electron mission of the year, all successful. That total includes two launches of its suborbital version of Electron, called HASTE, from Launch Complex 2 at Wallops Island, Virginia, which the company did not publicize. Rocket Lab has projected completing at least 20 Electron launches this year.