Rocket Lab Launches First Set of TROPICS Satellites for NASA with Success

Rocket Lab USA, Inc. has successfully completed the first of two dedicated Electron launches to deploy a constellation of tropical cyclone monitoring satellites for NASA. The launch, dubbed ‘Rocket Like a Hurricane,’ took place on May 8 at 13:00 NZST (01:00 UTC) from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula. The mission deployed two of the four CubeSats that comprise the TROPICS constellation, which will monitor the formation and evolution of tropical cyclones, including hurricanes, and provide rapidly updating observations of storm intensity. The unique orbits over Earth’s tropics allow the satellites to travel over any given storm about once an hour compared with current weather tracking satellites that have a timing of about once every six hours. With the first batch of TROPICS CubeSats now in orbit, the second launch, called ‘Coming to a Storm Near You,’ is expected to launch on another Electron rocket in approximately two weeks from Launch Complex 1.