{"id":297851,"date":"2025-11-20T21:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T21:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/297851\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T21:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T21:00:09","slug":"electron-launches-confidential-commercial-satellite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/297851\/","title":{"rendered":"Electron launches confidential commercial satellite"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BREMEN, Germany \u2014 Rocket Lab launched a payload for an undisclosed commercial customer Nov. 20, just hours after the company announced plans for the launch.<\/p>\n<p>The Electron lifted off from Rocket Lab\u2019s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 7:43 a.m. Eastern. Rocket Lab declared the \u201cFollow My Speed\u201d mission a success about an hour later.<\/p>\n<p>The company did not disclose the payload for the launch other than that it was a single satellite for a confidential commercial customer.<\/p>\n<p>This is not the third time in less than six months that Rocket Lab has not disclosed the customer for a commercial mission. A <a href=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/rocket-lab-launches-second-electron-within-48-hours\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">launch in June<\/a> carried an undisclosed payload later linked to EchoStar.<\/p>\n<p>An <a href=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/rocket-lab-launches-five-satellites-for-undisclosed-commercial-customer\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aug. 23 launch<\/a> carried five satellites for an undisclosed customer. The satellites were later named Calistus A through E in the Space-Track database, with Rwanda listed as the owner. That has raised suspicions that the owner is E-Space, a company that has previously made spectrum filings through the country.<\/p>\n<p>Another noteworthy element of the launch was that it took place with little advance public notice. Rocket Lab sent out a press release announcing the Follow My Speed mission less than five hours before liftoff, although airspace notices in recent days suggested a launch was upcoming.<\/p>\n<p>This orbital Electron launch took place within 48 hours of a launch of Electron\u2019s suborbital variant, HASTE, from Launch Complex 2 on Wallops Island, Virginia, Nov. 18. Rocket Lab said that launch carried a payload for the Missile Defense Agency developed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab along with several secondary payloads from government and industry, all intended to test missile defense technologies.<\/p>\n<p>With these launches Rocket Lab has now conducted 18 Electron launches this year, a record for the company. All 18 have been successful. That contrasts with the rest of Western small vehicle developers, which fly only a few times a year, at most.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese two launches serve as great examples of the team\u2019s skill at delivering mission success for our customers anywhere, anytime, and no matter the mission profile,\u201d Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab, said in a statement, calling Electron \u201cthe champion of small launch globally.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BREMEN, Germany \u2014 Rocket Lab launched a payload for an undisclosed commercial customer Nov. 20, just hours after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,27538,16151,128,7410,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-297851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-electron","11":"tag-rocket-lab","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-sn","14":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}