Liftoff from Mahia, then contact with the satellite

Electron left Launch Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand, at 05:30 UTC on November 14, which was 18:30 local time (NZDT) and 00:30 US Eastern. The slot matches the one iQPS published, 2:30 p.m. Japan time. The date had moved: an iQPS notice earlier listed a window opening no earlier than November 10, then no earlier than November 14.

The payload was one satellite, QPS-SAR-19, nicknamed YAMATSUMI-II. iQPS lists its destination as a mid-inclined orbit at 575 km altitude. The company’s own news page says the satellite was launched and made its first communication successfully, so the ground team has confirmed it is alive after separation.

“SAR” stands for synthetic aperture radar. Instead of taking a photograph with sunlight, the satellite sends out radio pulses and records the echoes, then combines them into an image. That means it can see through cloud and work at night, which ordinary optical cameras cannot.

One satellite among 24 planned

iQPS says it is building a constellation of 24 satellites by May 2028, with more to follow by 2030. The aim is near real-time service: watching a chosen region at an average interval of about 10 minutes. A single radar satellite passes over a given spot only now and then, so frequent revisits require many satellites in different orbits, and each Electron launch adds one more.

Rocket Lab describes this as its 11th Electron launch for iQPS, and says all of them have succeeded since the first in 2023. For a customer that needs a steady stream of satellites, that run of repeat launches matters more than any single flight.

From 66 launches to 100 in about 17 months

The track record shows how quickly Electron has grown. Rocket Lab’s page for the earlier mission, The Mountain God Guards, shows it flew on June 11, 2025 as Rocket Lab’s 66th launch overall, also for iQPS from Launch Complex 1. That mission also carried a single radar satellite to a 575 km orbit. Reaching the 100th flight on November 14, 2026 means about 34 launches in roughly 17 months, or one every two weeks on average, by Rocket Lab’s own count.

Rocket Lab’s press release headline calls Electron the fastest commercial rocket to reach 100 launches. The mission name also continues a theme: iQPS names each satellite after a figure from Japanese mythology, and the earlier flights in this series used names such as The Mountain God Guards.

The numbering of the iQPS flights differs between sources. Some listings call this one iQPS Launch 10, while Rocket Lab counts it as the company’s 11th Electron mission for iQPS. The date, orbit and result are the same in each.

Where to follow the next Electron flights

Rocket Lab streamed the launch on its official webcast. For dates of the next Electron missions and other flights worldwide, see the rocket launch schedule.

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