{"id":772012,"date":"2026-06-30T22:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T22:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/772012\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T22:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T22:40:12","slug":"watch-rocket-lab-launch-japanese-earth-observing-radar-satellite-from-new-zealand-tonight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/772012\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch Rocket Lab launch Japanese Earth-observing radar satellite from New Zealand tonight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rocket Lab – ‘The Grain Goddess Provides’ Launch – YouTube
\n\"Rocket<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Rocket Lab will launch a Japanese Earth-observing radar satellite to orbit tonight (June 30), and you can watch the action live.<\/p>\n

An Electron<\/a> rocket carrying the QPS-SAR-13 satellite<\/a> is scheduled to lift off from Rocket Lab<\/a>‘s New Zealand site tonight at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT and 1 p.m. local New Zealand time on July 1).<\/p>\n

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You can watch the launch live here at Space.com courtesy of Rocket Lab, or directly via the company.<\/a> Coverage will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff.<\/p>\n

Japan-based iQPS is building a constellation of 36 satellites in low Earth orbit<\/a> that study Earth using high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR). SAR spacecraft can peer through clouds and gather data at night as well as during the day.<\/p>\n

Tonight’s launch, which Rocket Lab calls “The Grain Goddess Provides,” will be the eighth, out of a total of 15, that it will perform to assemble iQPS’ constellation.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

If all goes according to plan tonight, Electron will deploy the iQPS satellite \u2014 which is nicknamed Mikura-I<\/a>, after a Japanese goddess associated with abundance and prosperity \u2014 about 50 minutes after liftoff, into a circular orbit 357 miles (575 kilometers) above Earth.<\/p>\n

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\"a\n<\/p>\n

The patch for Rocket Lab’s “The Grain Goddess Provides” mission, which is scheduled to launch on June 30, 2026. (Image credit: Rocket Lab)<\/p>\n

“The Grain Goddess Provides” will be Rocket Lab’s 92nd mission to date and its 13th of 2026 already. The vast majority of these launches have involved the 59-foot-tall (18-meter-tall) Electron, which gives small satellites dedicated rides to orbit. A small number have been performed by HASTE<\/a> , a suborbital version of Electron that helps customers test hypersonic technologies.<\/p>\n

\"Space\"<\/p>\n

Tonight’s launch will come just a day after Rocket Lab made a big business move: On Monday (June 29), Rocket Lab announced that it’s acquiring the communications company Iridium for $8 billion.<\/p>\n

“By combining our launch capability and satellite manufacturing with @IridiumComm\u2019s global satellite communications network and rare spectrum, Rocket Lab becomes a fully integrated, self-launching, tier-1 space power, delivering critical communications capability to millions of users worldwide,” Rocket Lab said via X on Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rocket Lab – ‘The Grain Goddess Provides’ Launch – YouTube Watch On Rocket Lab will launch a Japanese…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":761922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,66,306],"class_list":["post-772012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}