Rocket Lab “Rocket Like A Hurricane” TROPICS-2 Launch

Rocket Lab is scheduled to launch NASA’s Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS-2) mission from its New Zealand launch site on 2023-05-08 in a two hour launch window opening at 01:00 UTC (this is in the evening of May 7th in western hemisphere time zones). This will be the 36th launch of the Electron rocket and fourth mission of 2023. The live stream usually starts half an hour or so before launch.

This launch will place two TROPICS 3U CubeSats in a 550 km low Earth orbit at 32° inclination. The first launch of TROPICS satelliltes on 2022-06-12 on an Astra Space rocket launched from Florida failed to reach orbit and re-entered off the west coast of Africa.

Here is a pre-launch preview from Everyday Astronaut .

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