Rocket Lab Launches 50th Electron Rocket

'No Time Toulouse' Mission Marks Launch Milestone for the Company

The 50th Rocket Lab Electron rocket was launched successfully just after 2 pm EDT Thursday (5:15 am NZT, June 21) to deploy five Internet-of-Things (IoT) satellites for French company Kinéis.

The 'No Time Toulouse' mission is the first of five dedicated Electron launches for Kinéis, a company backed by private and public investors including the French government’s space agency CNES (Centre National d'Études Spatiales) and CLS (Collecte Localisation Satellites) an international space-based solutions provider, to improve global IoT connectivity. Kinéis’ new constellation will connect any object anywhere in the world and guarantee the transmission of targeted and useful data to users, in near-real time, with low energy consumption with more powerful 30kg-class nanosats that integrate IoT technology. The constellation also includes a second mission: a ship-tracking Automatic Identification System (AIS). Once deployed, these technologies will allow Kinéis to expand across multiple industries and scale from 20,000 devices connected to millions.

The mission also marks 499 Rutherford engines sent to space. Each Electron launch features 10 Rutherford engines, including nine on the first stage and a single vacuum optimized Rutherford engine on the second stage. Rocket Lab successfully flew a recovered Rutherford engine in 2023, hence 499 engines rather than 500.

It was the 46th mission to launch from Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand. The other four Electron missions have flown from Wallops Island, VA in the U.S.

Final orbit was achieved at T+ 64 minutes into the mission.

Kinéis plans to deploy a 25-satellite constellation on Rocket Lab dedicated missions.

(Source: Rocket Lab. Images from launch coverage video)