Overview

• Rocket Lab’s 18-meter Electron lifted off from Mahia, New Zealand, at 12:10 a.m. EDT on August 5 and placed Kushinada-I into a 575-km sun-synchronous orbit 54 minutes later.
• The mission—dubbed The Harvest Goddess Thrives—was Rocket Lab’s 69th Electron flight overall and its fifth tailored launch for the Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space.
• QPS-SAR-12, nicknamed Kushinada-I after a Japanese harvest deity, becomes the 12th of 36 planned satellites set to deliver continuous, all-weather Earth observation.
• Each QPS-SAR satellite carries high-resolution synthetic-aperture radar capable of imaging through clouds or at night with a constellation-wide revisit time of roughly 10 minutes.
• Rocket Lab has four additional iQPS launches scheduled through 2025 into 2026 as it simultaneously advances development of its larger Neutron launch vehicle.