Rocket Lab Prepares to Launch for Classified Customer

The company expects to launch its 12th mission of 2024, named after the Jimmy Buffett song “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes,” no earlier than Tuesday at 5:30 a.m. EST. Lifting off from Rocket Lab’s exclusive Launch Complex 1 facility in New Zealand, the firm’s Electron rocket will launch a satellite to orbit for a confidential commercial customer. It will be the company’s 54th mission overall and 50th to depart from Launch Complex 1.

Rocket Lab is no stranger to launching for sensitive clients such as the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and NASA. It also serves a bevy of commercial customers.

The company added the mission to its manifest in October after signing a launch contract less than two months earlier. The flight was intended to launch just three days later, which it said would have been its fastest contract-to-launch turnaround, but was scrubbed to allow more time for final checkouts.

“Rocket Lab’s rapid call-up launch capability, its standardized and rapid production of Electron launch vehicles that ensures a rocket can be assigned a payload for on-demand launch within days, responsive launch sites, and its experienced team behind the second most frequently launched U.S. orbital rocket, are key enablers for this mission,” the company said in an update on its website.

It’s possible Rocket Lab’s mystery customer is former client E-Space, a communications company building satellite constellations designed to survive low-Earth orbit. The partners in 2022 deployed 34 satellites during a mission that also featured Rocket Lab’s initial attempt at catching Electron’s first stage using a helicopter.

Launch companies are required to apply with the New Zealand Space Agency when launching from New Zealand soil. Rocket Lab customers Synspective, Capella Space and Kinéis are on the list of approved payload providers, for example. Also on that list is E-Space, which received the green light on September 19. That lines up with Rocket Lab’s timeline of less than two months from contract to launch.

StardustMe, a startup that launches ashes to space, also received payload approval in September, but it works with Rocket Lab competitor SpaceX.

Rocket Lab told FLYING the firm has backup launch dates throughout November in the case Tuesday’s attempt is scrubbed.

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