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Rocket Lab will launch a Japanese technology-demonstrating satellite tv for pc tonight (Dec. 6), and you’ll watch the motion stay.
A 59-foot-tall (18 meters) Electron rocket is scheduled to launch the “RAISE and Shine” mission from Rocket Lab‘s New Zealand web site tonight at 10 p.m. EST (0300 GMT and 4 p.m. native New Zealand time on Sunday, Dec. 7).
“RAISE and Shine” is the primary flight that Rocket Lab has contracted immediately with JAXA (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Company). It is a part of a two-flight cope with the Japanese area company; the second mission is a rideshare launch scheduled for early subsequent 12 months.
The California-based firm has a protracted historical past with Japan general, nonetheless, launching greater than 20 missions to this point for corporations primarily based within the Land of the Rising Solar.
Immediately’s launch will ship JAXA’s Fast Modern payload demonstration Satellite tv for pc-4, often known as RAISE-4, to a round orbit 336 miles (540 kilometers) above Earth.
The satellite tv for pc’s full identify tells us broadly what it can do up there. RAISE-4 “will display eight applied sciences developed by personal corporations, universities, and analysis establishments all through Japan,” Rocket Lab wrote in a mission description.
“RAISE and Shine” will proceed a record-breaking 12 months for Rocket Lab, which has launched 18 missions in 2025 thus far, all of them profitable. Fifteen of them have been orbital flights. The opposite three have been suborbital launches with HASTE, a modified model of Electron designed to assist clients check hypersonic applied sciences within the ultimate frontier.
Rocket Lab’s earlier single-year launch report was 16, set in 2024.
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