At 0430 GMT a 29 June a Rocket Lab Electron rocket (Electron KS) was launched from the Mahia Peninsula. Aboard were seven spacecraft which were put into a circa 460 x 452 km low Earth orbit inclined at 45 degrees relative to the Earth equator. The seventh flight of the Electron was dubbed “Let It Rain”.
View of Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand launch site where seventh Electron was launched from. Courtesy: Rocket Lab
The largest of these spacecraft was the BlackSky Global 3 Earth observation microsatellite weighing in at 56 kg. Also aboard were two Swarm Tech SpaceBee 8 and 9 store/forward communications cubesats, the Prometheus 2.6 and 2.7 signals intelligence nanosatellites for US Special Operations Command, and the ACRUX-1 satellite built by Australian students at Melbourne University. There was also a mystery satellite aboard which is thought to be a US military secret payload.
