Rocket Lab Launches 19th Mission of 2026, Sending Hawk Satellites to Orbit
The Electron mission marked Rocket Lab's 98th launch overall and put three more HawkEye 360 spacecraft into low Earth orbit.
By Layla Fontaine ·
Rocket Lab fired an Electron rocket from its New Zealand site on Oct. 23, carrying three signals-intelligence satellites built for HawkEye 360, a Virginia company. The vehicle lifted off at 3:11 a.m. EDT (8:11 p.m. local time) with a payload Rocket Lab labeled "We're Not Hawking Around." The three spacecraft were released toward low Earth orbit at an altitude of 323 miles (520 kilometers). Once stationed and commissioned there, they will scan the planet for radio frequency emissions.
The mission adds to a heavy flight year for Rocket Lab. It stands as the company's 98th launch to date and its 19th of 2026. Sixteen of this year's flights used the two-stage, 59-foot-tall Electron, while three flew on HASTE, a suborbital variant of Electron built to test technologies during hypersonic flight.
HawkEye 360 clusters its satellites in groups of three to gather signal data across the RF spectrum. Rocket Lab's mission summary lists the work as maritime tracking, GNSS jamming detection, radar monitoring, communications mapping and space defense. HawkEye 360 supplies the resulting information to the U.S. government and its allies. The company's first satellites reached orbit in 2018.
The launch followed another Hawk deployment by two days. Three of the satellites flew on SpaceX's Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission.
