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Rocket Lab to Launch 1st Commercial Mission Tonight: Watch It Live
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | November 10, 2018 07:20am ET
The spaceflight startup Rocket Lab will launch its first fully operational commercial mission Saturday night (Nov. 10), and you can watch the landmark liftoff live.
Rocket Lab's 57-foot-tall (17 meters) Electron booster is scheduled to rise off the pad at the company's New Zealand launch site Saturday at 10 p.m. EST (0300 GMT and 4 p.m. local New Zealand time on Nov. 11), on a mission dubbed "It's Business Time." You can watch the action live here at Space.com, courtesy of Rocket Lab, or directly via the company's website.
The launch window runs for 4 hours Saturday night. If "It's Business Time" gets delayed, similar 4-hour windows are open on the following eight nights. [In Photos: Rocket Lab's Electron Booster for Small Satellites]
If all goes according to plan, "It's Business Time" will deliver six small satellites to Earth orbit, about 310 miles (500 kilometers) above our planet. Those spacecraft belong to Spire Global, Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Fleet Space Technologies and the Irvine CubeSat STEM Program, Rocket Lab representatives have said. The Irvine CubeSat STEM satellite also carries innovative tiny thrusters built by Accion Systems for propulsion.
More:
https://www.space.com/42406-rocket-lab-first-commercial-launch-webcast.html