Rocket Lab plans to launch an Electron rocket carrying one Capella Space third generation “Acadia” synthetic aperture imaging radar satellite to a 640 km circular low Earth orbit at 53° inclination on 2023-08-23 in a two hour launch window opening at 23:45 UTC. The launch will be from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex-1B on the Māhia Peninsula of New Zealand. This will be the 40th overall launch of the Electron rocket and the 7th of 2023. Payload mass is around 160 kg.
Here is a pre-flight preview from Everyday Astronaut .
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The launch attempt on 2023-07-30 came to an end when the automatic sequencer cut off the countdown just as the first stage engines were igniting. As they had slipped the T0 time to the end of the launch window, that meant scrub for the day.
Launches rockets into orbit from two continents. Can’t spell “its”.
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After the cut-off and scrub on the 2023-07-30 launch attempt and a protracted stand-down due to foul weather (it’s winter in the southern hemisphere), Rocket Lab will try again to launch this mission on 2023-08-06 in a two hour launch window opening at 05:00 UTC. I have updated the main post accordingly and added the Webcast player for this attempt.
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The launch attempt on 2023-08-06 was scrubbed due to “out-of-family” sensor data from one engine. No new date has been announced.
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Rocket Lab has announced a new launch time for this mission, 2023-08-23 at 23:45 UTC. I have updated the main post with this time. The live Webcast player for the launch has not yet been posted (Rocket Lab usually gets around to it only a few hours before launch time). I will add it to the main post when it appears.
Update: Rocket Lab has finally posted the Web player for the launch. It is now in the main post. (2023-08-23 18:45 UTC)
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