Rocketlab is planning to launch their Electron rocket from the Mahia peninsula on New Zealand's North Island
https://www.rocketlabusa.com/missions/next-mission/
Tentatively scheduled for NET (no earlier than) 04:30 UTC (16:30 NZST, 12:30 AM EDT Saturday June 29, 9:30 PM PDT Friday June 28.)
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/06/...e-mission/
Live video should be here:
www.rocketlabusa.com/live-stream
Payloads appear to be six satellites, one micro-satellite and five pico-sats. Classification of small satellites by mass here.
The biggest is BlackSky's Global 3, the third in a series of small earth observation satellites. It carries a little 24 cm reflecting telescope that will be trained on Earth and not out into space. It should be able to resolve objects as small as one meter on Earth. So it will be able to see houses and cars, but probably not people.
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/blacksky-global.htm
Two are little Prometheus-2 satellites, tiny 1-U (4" by 4" by 4") cubesats built by Los Alamos National Laboratory for the US Special Operations Command. The idea is to evaluate how useful tiny communications satellites that cost less than $10,000 might be in low earth orbits for audio/video/data transmissions between commanders in the US and Special Operators in remote locations with little man-portable earth stations. (Like small satellite phones, I guess.)
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/prometheus-2.htm
Two more are basically the same idea except private, little 1-U cubesats called SpaceBEEs. These belong to something called Swarm Technologies and are intended as communications relays for things like scientific instruments in remote locations. I can imagine them being useful for things like weather buoys out in the middle of the Pacific and things like that.
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/spacebee-5.htm
Finally there's another tiny 1-U cubesat called Acrux 1, designed and built by something called the Melbourne Space Program, mostly engineering students at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/acrux-1.htm
Here's the Electron rocket at Rocketlab's NZ launch complex (Rocketlab photo) The US flag is because Rocketlab is a US company and the rockets are manufactured in Huntington Beach California. But they launch from New Zealand. (The pad is on the Mahia Peninsula on the east side of North Island, while mission control is in Auckland.)
This is BlackSky Global 3 undergoing integration at the NZ launch complex (Rocketlab photo)
https://www.rocketlabusa.com/missions/next-mission/
Tentatively scheduled for NET (no earlier than) 04:30 UTC (16:30 NZST, 12:30 AM EDT Saturday June 29, 9:30 PM PDT Friday June 28.)
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/06/...e-mission/
Live video should be here:
www.rocketlabusa.com/live-stream
Payloads appear to be six satellites, one micro-satellite and five pico-sats. Classification of small satellites by mass here.
The biggest is BlackSky's Global 3, the third in a series of small earth observation satellites. It carries a little 24 cm reflecting telescope that will be trained on Earth and not out into space. It should be able to resolve objects as small as one meter on Earth. So it will be able to see houses and cars, but probably not people.
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/blacksky-global.htm
Two are little Prometheus-2 satellites, tiny 1-U (4" by 4" by 4") cubesats built by Los Alamos National Laboratory for the US Special Operations Command. The idea is to evaluate how useful tiny communications satellites that cost less than $10,000 might be in low earth orbits for audio/video/data transmissions between commanders in the US and Special Operators in remote locations with little man-portable earth stations. (Like small satellite phones, I guess.)
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/prometheus-2.htm
Two more are basically the same idea except private, little 1-U cubesats called SpaceBEEs. These belong to something called Swarm Technologies and are intended as communications relays for things like scientific instruments in remote locations. I can imagine them being useful for things like weather buoys out in the middle of the Pacific and things like that.
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/spacebee-5.htm
Finally there's another tiny 1-U cubesat called Acrux 1, designed and built by something called the Melbourne Space Program, mostly engineering students at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/acrux-1.htm
Here's the Electron rocket at Rocketlab's NZ launch complex (Rocketlab photo) The US flag is because Rocketlab is a US company and the rockets are manufactured in Huntington Beach California. But they launch from New Zealand. (The pad is on the Mahia Peninsula on the east side of North Island, while mission control is in Auckland.)
This is BlackSky Global 3 undergoing integration at the NZ launch complex (Rocketlab photo)