Rocket Lab Launches Strix-3 Radar-imaging Satellite For Synspective: Owl Night Long Mission

Rocket Lab's Electron rocket launched Japanese company Synspective's Strix-3 satellite from a New Zealand launch site at 1503 UTC(March 12), 40 minutes into a previously advertised one-hour launch window.

"It's on its way to space," a Rocket Lab official said during a live broadcast of the "Owl Night Long" mission. Following the successful first-stage separation, the broadcaster called out, "Done, done and done."

Unlike SpaceX Falcon 9 which has reusable first stage, Electron's will burn up on re-entry to Earth's atmosphere. Rocket Lab is still working to make the rocket's first stage reusable.

The deployment of Strix-3 from a "kick stage" was confirmed about an hour after liftoff Tuesday, at 1600 UTC.

According to Rocket Lab, Strix-3 is headed for a sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) 561 kilometers above Earth. Satellites in SSOs see the same patch of ground at the same solar time every day, meaning that lighting conditions are consistent and changes on Earth's surface can be detected more easily. For this reason, these orbits are popular destinations for weather and reconnaissance satellites.

Strix-3 "can image millimeter-level changes to the Earth's surface from space, independent of weather conditions at any time day or night," Rocket Lab wrote in a mission description.

The mission's name "Owl Night Long" is a nod to Synspective's Strix family of synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) satellites, which shares its name with a genus of owls.

WATCH Rocket Lab's launch of Strix-3 to orbit