🔴 LIVE: Rocket Lab launches 'Owl By The Dozen' mission with an Electron rocket
Video from the channel Frontera Espacial about Electron, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 52:58. Language: Spanish. Video type: Livestream.
What is being broadcast
Spanish-language broadcast, commentated by Emanuel Hernández and Ana Julia, of the launch of Rocket Lab's Owl By The Dozen mission: an Electron rocket lifting off from Pad 1B at the launch complex on the Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand, with T0 set for 19 September 2026 at 03:22 UTC after a previous seven-minute delay. It is the Electron's 96th flight and the company's 17th that year. The payload is a single satellite, StriX-12, the twelfth in Japanese company Synspective's constellation: an X-band synthetic aperture radar of about 100 kg that observes day and night and through clouds, headed for a custom low orbit of about 570 km.
During the wait, the commentators run through the rocket: 18 m tall, 1.2 m in diameter, carbon composite structure, RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen, nine Rutherford engines with electric pumps on the first stage, one vacuum-optimized engine on the second, and a kick stage with a restartable Curie engine, for about 300 kg to low orbit. The mission's name plays on the owl, after the genus Strix.
Key moments
With an 85% chance of favorable weather, the Electron lifts off and passes max aerodynamic pressure. This is followed by first-stage shutdown, stage separation, and ignition of the vacuum Rutherford, with the characteristic sound captured on board; then fairing separation above 100 km altitude and, around T+6 min 37 s, the hot-swap of batteries, whose spent packs are jettisoned. Second-stage engine cutoff confirms a preliminary orbital insertion.
Outcome
The launch proceeds nominally. The Curie kick stage was due to ignite around T+49 min to circularize the orbit and release the satellite around T+53 min; the broadcast ends before that, so the deployment is not shown. In the closing stretch the hosts discuss upcoming missions, such as Japan's MMX to the moons of Mars and Starship's 14th flight.