Rocket Lab Electron Launch from LC-1 | Eight Days A Week

Video from the channel The Launch Pad about Electron, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 50:12. Language: English. Video type: Livestream.

This is the live broadcast of a Rocket Lab Electron launch from Pad B of Launch Complex 1, on the Mahia Peninsula (New Zealand), narrated from the company's mission control. The mission, Eight Days A Week, takes its name from the Beatles song and refers to the eighth StriX satellite that Rocket Lab is placing into orbit for the Japanese company Synspective. These satellites carry synthetic aperture radar (SAR), which obtains images using radio waves rather than light. Their data is used for urban planning, monitoring construction and infrastructure, and disaster response. The target was a sun-synchronous low Earth orbit, with liftoff set for 7:10 a.m. local time (18:10 UTC) and an 80% chance of good weather. The hosts recall that the collaboration with Synspective began in 2020 and that 19 more missions remain to complete the constellation before 2030.

The broadcast covers the go/no-go poll led by launch director Taylor Moore and explains the final countdown: last liquid oxygen topping, venting closed, the autonomous flight termination system armed, and pressurization of both stages. After liftoff, the Electron flies over the peninsula, passes through maximum aerodynamic pressure without incident, and exceeds 2,000 km/h on the nine Rutherford engines of the first stage. This is followed by main engine cutoff (MECO), stage separation, and second-stage ignition at over 90 km altitude. The fairing then separates, the satellite becomes visible, and speed passes 8,500 km/h. Around six and a half minutes into the flight, the hot swap takes place: the second stage's depleted batteries are jettisoned and a fresh set comes online. The hosts also explain the kick stage, which acts as an orbital transfer vehicle with its own 3D-printed Curie engine.

Mission control confirms second-stage engine cutoff (SECO) and separation of the kick stage, which leaves it and StriX in an elliptical transfer orbit. The broadcast cuts out for the coast phase: the Curie engine was due to circularize the orbit about 40 minutes later, before releasing the satellite.