Rocket Lab plans to launch five satellites for the French technology company Kinéis tonight (March 17), and you can watch the action live.
An Electron vehicle carrying five of Kinéis’ “Internet of Things” spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Rocket Lab‘s New Zealand site today at 9:31 p.m. EDT (0131 GMT and 2:31 p.m. local New Zealand time on March 18).
Rocket Lab will stream the mission live, starting 30 minutes before launch. Space.com will carry the feed as well, if Rocket Lab makes it available.
If all goes according to plan tonight, the Electron will deploy the five satellites into a circular orbit 404 miles (650 kilometers) above Earth about 66.5 minutes after liftoff.
Related: Rocket Lab launches 5 IoT satellites on landmark 50th mission (video)
“High Five” will finish the assembly of Kinéis’ 25-nanosatellite constellation. The other 20 spacecraft went up on four Electron launches, in June, September and November of 2024 and February of this year.
Thanks to this constellation, “Kinéis can connect any object from anywhere in the world and transmit useful data from these objects to users in near real time,” Rocket Lab wrote in the “High Five” press kit, which you can find here.
“This data is a decision-making tool that can be used to optimize activities while reducing risks, thanks to three essential functions: tracking, monitoring and alerting,” the company added.
“High Five” will be the fourth mission of 2025 for the 59-foot-tall (18-meter) Electron. The rocket’s third launch of the year occurred just last Friday (March 14), when it sent a radar satellite for the Japan-based Earth-imaging company iQPS to orbit.
Electron flew 14 times in 2024, which was a new high for the vehicle. Rocket Lab also conducted two launches last year with HASTE, a modified suborbital version of Electron that serves as a testbed for hypersonic technology.
