Watch Rocket Lab launch private Japanese 'Strix' satellite to orbit today

a black and white rocket launches into a blue sky — A Rocket Lab Electron rocket launches on the "Insight at Speed is a Friend Indeed" mission from New Zealand on March 5, 2026. (Image credit: Rocket Lab)

Rocket Lab will launch an Earth-observing radar satellite for the Japanese company Synspective today (March 19), and you can watch it live.

An Electron rocket topped with one of Synspective's Strix satellites is scheduled to lift off from Rocket Lab's New Zealand site today at 1:45 p.m. EDT (1745 GMT; 6:45 a.m. on March 20 local New Zealand time), on a mission called "Eight Days a Week."

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Today's launch will be the eighth that Rocket Lab conducts for Synspective, which helps explain the mission name.

The Tokyo-based company is building "a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging constellation over Japan that provides data for urban development planning, construction and infrastructure monitoring and disaster response," Rocket Lab wrote in a mission description.

Rocket Lab has been the sole launch provider to date for the Strix constellation, whose first satellite went up in 2020. ("Strix," in case you were wondering, is a widespread genus of owls.) Synspective has booked another 20 Electron launches, including "Eight Days a Week," to finishing assembling the constellation by 2029, according to Rocket Lab.

"Eight Days a Week" will be the 77th launch to date for the 59-foot-tall (18-meter-tall) Electron, which debuted with a test flight in May 2017.

Rocket Lab has also launched seven missions with HASTE, a suborbital version of Electron that allows customers to test hypersonic technologies in the space environment.

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.