{"id":61661,"date":"2026-06-26T05:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T05:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/?guid=75a416090b32650178bcacd67c41a129"},"modified":"2026-06-26T19:39:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T19:39:16","slug":"watch-live-rocket-lab-launching-ten-owl-of-ten-mission-for-synspective-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/2026\/06\/26\/watch-live-rocket-lab-launching-ten-owl-of-ten-mission-for-synspective-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket Lab launches &#8216;Ten Owl of Ten&#8217; mission, sending up Japanese Earth-observing radar satellite (video)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n                            \n                            <article>\n                                <iframe src=\"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/players\/e33wdzxq.html\" id=\"e33wdzxq\" title=\"Blastoff! Rocket Lab launches Japanese Earth-observing satellite\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1076\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"auto\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><p>Rocket Lab launched the \"Ten Owl of Ten\" mission from New Zealand today (June 26), adding to Japanese company Synspective's imaging constellation.<\/p><p>An <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/electron-rocket.html\"><u>Electron rocket<\/u><\/a> lifted off from Rocket Lab's Launch Complex-1 (LC-1) in New Zealand today (June 26) at 1:43 p.m. EDT (1743 GMT; 5:43 a.m. on June 27 local New Zealand time). <\/p><p>As its name suggests, the \"Ten Owl of Ten\" mission sent up Synspective's 10th synthetic aperture radar (SAR) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/24839-satellites.html\"><u>satellite<\/u><\/a>, which will expand the company's network above Japan to provide imaging data for use in city planning, monitoring infrastructure and responding to natural disasters.<\/p><figure class=\"van-image-figure  inline-layout\" data-bordeaux-image-check ><div class='image-full-width-wrapper'><div class='image-widthsetter' style=\"max-width:2855px;\"><p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:56.25%;\"><img id=\"5M7Ho4yuL69hSUCQ2wiX6A\" name=\"Screenshot 2026-06-26 at 10.45.30\u202fAM\" alt=\"a black and white rocket launches into a dark night sky, creating a huge plume of exhaust\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/5M7Ho4yuL69hSUCQ2wiX6A.jpg\" mos=\"\" align=\"middle\" fullscreen=\"\" width=\"2855\" height=\"1606\" attribution=\"\" endorsement=\"\" class=\"inline\"><\/p><\/div><\/div><figcaption itemprop=\"caption description\" class=\" inline-layout\"><span class=\"caption-text\">A Rocket Lab Electron launches a Strix Earth-observing radar satellite for the Japanese company Synspective from New Zealand on June 26, 2026. <\/span><span class=\"credit\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">(Image credit: Rocket Lab)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><p>The launch was Rocket Lab's 12th so far in 2026, and the ninth for Electron this year (the other flights were performed by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/launches-spacecraft\/rocket-lab-haste-hypersonic-launch-dart-ae-scramjet-us-military\"><u>HASTE rocket<\/u><\/a>, a suborbital variant of Electron). Electron, Rocket Lab's workhorse small-lift launch vehicle, stands 59 feet (18 meters) tall and can launch payloads weighing up to 661 pounds (300 kilograms) to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/low-earth-orbit\"><u>low Earth orbit<\/u><\/a> (LEO). <\/p><p>Synspective has booked Electron to launch the entirety of its Strix constellation, with 17 more on the rocket's manifest expected to launch before 2030. The satellites are named after a genus of owls, drawing inspiration from the birds' visual acuity. <\/p><p>Like their namesake, the Strix satellites' SAR antennas allow the spacecraft to collect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/54-earth-history-composition-and-atmosphere.html\"><u>Earth<\/u><\/a>-observation data in every lighting condition (and also through cloud cover, which the birds can't quite match). <\/p><figure class=\"van-image-figure  inline-layout\" data-bordeaux-image-check ><div class='image-full-width-wrapper'><div class='image-widthsetter' style=\"max-width:1021px;\"><p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:56.22%;\"><img id=\"LwbgogkmT478pDKJG9ktE\" name=\"Screenshot 2026-05-20 at 11.44.30\u202fAM\" alt=\"The patch for Rocket Lab's \"Ten Owl of Ten\" mission.\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/LwbgogkmT478pDKJG9ktE.png\" mos=\"\" align=\"middle\" fullscreen=\"\" width=\"1021\" height=\"574\" attribution=\"\" endorsement=\"\" class=\"inline\"><\/p><\/div><\/div><figcaption itemprop=\"caption description\" class=\" inline-layout\"><span class=\"caption-text\">The patch for Rocket Lab's \"Ten Owl of Ten\" mission. <\/span><span class=\"credit\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">(Image credit: Rocket Lab)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><p>Each Strix satellite weighs about 220 pounds (100 kg), and stretches to 16.4 feet (5 meters) wide with its SAR antenna fully deployed. Each satellite has an on-orbit lifespan of about five years, according to Synspective's <a href=\"https:\/\/synspective.com\/satellite\/satellite-strix\/\" ><u>website<\/u><\/a>. The spacecraft cruise in LEO between 15 and45 degrees of inclination. <\/p><p>If all goes according to plan, Electron will deliver the \"Ten Owl of Ten\" Strix to an inclination of 42 degrees, at a LEO altitude of 343 miles (552 kilometers). <\/p><p>Electron's second stage separated about 2 minutes, 40 seconds after liftoff today, with the third or \"kick\" stage taking over about nine minutes into flight. Payload separation <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RocketLab\/status\/2070578547656393059\" ><u>occurred on schedule<\/u><\/a> 45 minutes later, around T+1 hour after liftoff. <\/p><p><em><strong>Editor's note: <\/strong><\/em><em>This story was updated at 1:50 p.m. ET on June 26 with news of successful liftoff, then again at 3:35 with news of satellite deployment.<\/em><\/p>\n                                                            <\/article>\n                            \n                        ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rocket Lab launched the &#8220;Ten Owl of Ten&#8221; mission from New Zealand today (June 26), adding to Japanese company Synspective&#8217;s imaging constellation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2799,1263],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-launches-amp-spacecraft","category-space-exploration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61661"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/610"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61661"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61706,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61661\/revisions\/61706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}