Watch Rocket Lab launch mystery mission for confidential customer today

Rocket Lab - 'Insight At Speed Is A Friend Indeed' Launch - YouTube

Rocket Lab will launch a mystery mission this evening (March 5), and you can watch the action live.

a black rocket rolls horizontally down a road toward a launch pad while several people look on — Rocket Lab rolls its Electron launcher out ahead of the "Insight at Speed is a Friend Indeed" mission, which is scheduled to launch on March 5, 2026. (Image credit: Rocket Lab)

We don't know much about "Insight at Speed is a Friend Indeed." Rocket Lab announced the planned launch just a few hours before liftoff and provided few details, saying that it's "for a confidential commercial customer."

Some observers are speculating this customer may be the Virginia company BlackSky, which operates a constellation of sharp-eyed Earth-observation satellites.

Rocket Lab has flown many missions for BlackSky to date and recently has been helping the company build out its new "Gen-3" constellation in low Earth orbit.

Today's launch will be the 76th to date for the 59-foot-tall (18-meter-tall) Electron, which gives small satellites dedicated rides to orbit.

The rocket flew a company-record 18 times last year. Rocket Lab also launched HASTE, a suborbital version of Electron designed to help customers test hypersonic technologies, three times in 2025. All 21 of these missions were successful.

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

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