{"id":15261998,"date":"2026-08-20T04:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T08:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/watch-rocket-lab-launch-a-private-japanese-earth-observing-satellite-to-orbit-today\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T04:33:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T08:33:42","slug":"watch-rocket-lab-launch-a-private-japanese-earth-observing-satellite-to-orbit-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/watch-rocket-lab-launch-a-private-japanese-earth-observing-satellite-to-orbit-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch Rocket Lab launch a private Japanese Earth-observing satellite to orbit today"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Rocket Lab will launch a private Japanese Earth-observing satellite to orbit this morning (Aug. 20), and you can watch the action live.<\/p>\n

An Electron<\/u><\/a> vehicle is scheduled to lift off from Rocket Lab’s New Zealand site today, during a window that opens at 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT; 1 a.m. on Aug. 21 local New Zealand time), carrying aloft a radar satellite for the Tokyo-based company iQPS.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab<\/u><\/a> will stream the proceedings live, starting at about 30 minutes before liftoff. You can watch via the company<\/u><\/a>, and Space.com will carry the feed as well if it’s made available. <\/p>\n

This will be Rocket Lab’s ninth launch for iQPS, which is building a constellation of 36 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites in low Earth orbit<\/u><\/a> (LEO). Such spacecraft can study Earth day or night, and they can peer through cloud cover as well.<\/p>\n

The iQPS network “is being developed and deployed at a rapid pace to provide high resolution and near-real time SAR imagery to its global users,” Rocket Lab wrote in a description of today’s mission<\/u><\/a>, which it calls “The Lightning God Defends.”<\/p>\n

That name is a reference to the satellite going up today: It’s nicknamed SUSANOO-II, after a Japanese lightning god.<\/p>\n

If all goes according to plan, the Electron’s upper “kick stage” will deploy SUSANOO-II about 50 minutes after launch, at an altitude of 357 miles (575 kilometers).<\/p>\n

Today’s flight will be Rocket Lab’s 14th of 2026 and 93rd overall. The company’s most recent launch, on Aug. 6<\/u><\/a>, also lofted an iQPS satellite to LEO.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of the company’s flights have been performed by Electron, a 59-foot-tall (18 meters) rocket that gives small satellites dedicated rides to Earth orbit and beyond. Rocket Lab also operates a suborbital variant of Electron called HASTE<\/u><\/a>, which allows customers to test sensors and other tech in the hypersonic flight environment.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n

Source: Space.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rocket Lab will launch its ninth mission for the Japanese Earth-imaging company iQPS this morning (Aug. 20), and you can watch the action live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15262000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15261998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80.jpg",1280,720,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80-620x349.jpg",620,349,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80-768x432.jpg",768,432,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80-940x529.jpg",940,529,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80.jpg",1280,720,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80.jpg",1280,720,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80-998x665.jpg",998,665,true],"ignition_item":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80-670x446.jpg",670,446,true],"ignition_item_lg":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80.jpg",1280,720,false],"ignition_article_media":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80-510x510.jpg",510,510,true],"ignition_minicart_item":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80-160x160.jpg",160,160,true],"profile_24":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80-24x24.jpg",24,24,true],"profile_48":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80-48x48.jpg",48,48,true],"profile_96":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80-96x96.jpg",96,96,true],"profile_150":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"profile_300":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15261998-l8glongc6ggodubktvdj27-1280-80-300x300.jpg",300,300,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"news.iNthacity","author_link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/author\/atombo\/"},"category_info":"All News<\/a>","tag_info":"All News","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15261998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15261998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15261998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15261999,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15261998\/revisions\/15261999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15262000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15261998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15261998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15261998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}