Rocket Lab will launch a wildlife data-collecting satellite to space Friday, Oct. 7 and you can watch all the action live.
The mission, nicknamed “It Argos Up From Here,” is slated to lift off from Rocket Lab‘s New Zealand site on the North Island’s Mahia Peninsula at 1:09 p.m. EDT (1709 GMT or 6:09 a.m. local time Oct. 8). You can watch live here at Space.com, on behalf of Rocket Lab, starting roughly 20 minutes before launch.
The mission will use an Electron rocket to loft the satellite and its payload, made by General Atomics, into orbit. While Rocket Lab aims to make Electron fully reusable, the company does not plan to repurpose the booster on this occasion.Â
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The data-collecting payload on the satellite will gather information from sensors that are used as a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) cooperative data and rescue services program, General Atomics officials said in a release (opens in new tab).
“Argos is an international program that collects data from thousands of sensors and transmitters located around the world,” officials wrote. “Currently, data is collected and distributed for use in numerous applications, including ocean buoy tracking, wildlife and fishery monitoring, and maritime security, as well as non-environmental uses.”
The wildlife tracking program is what Argos is best known for, especially for sea turtles and marine mammals, Rocket Lab officials wrote in their press kit for the mission. “There are currently 22,000 active transmitters around the world that the Argos system is monitoring, with almost 7,800 tracking wildlife,” officials wrote (opens in new tab).Â
“It Argos Up From Here” is Rocket Lab’s 31st Electron mission and the first partnership between Rocket Lab and General Atomics, according to Rocket Lab. The company’s last launch on Sept. 16 lofted the Strix-1 satellite on behalf of Synspective.
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