Watch Rocket Lab launch a sharp-eyed radar satellite into orbit on August 11

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Rocket Lab will launch an Earth observation radar satellite for Californian company Capella Space on Sunday morning (August 11), and you can watch the action live.

One Electron vehicle is scheduled to take off from rocket laboratoryon the New Zealand website on Sunday at 7:15 a.m. EDT (11:15 a.m. GMT; 11:15 p.m. New Zealand local time).

Rocket Lab will stream the launch livestarting 30 minutes before takeoff. You can watch it here on Space.com, if the company makes the stream available as expected.

Rocket Lab calls Sunday’s mission “A Sky Full of SARS,” which is a nod to the payload — the Acadia-3 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite. If all goes according to plan, the 59-foot-tall (18-meter) Electron will deploy Acadia-3 about 57 minutes after liftoff, into a circular orbit 382 miles (615 kilometers) above. Earth.

“A Sky Full of SARS” will be Rocket Lab’s fifth launch overall for San Francisco headquarters Chapel Spacewhose satellites return sharp images of the Earth in all weather conditions, day or night – an important benefit of SAR technology.

“Capella Space provides easy access to frequent and timely information affecting dozens of industries around the world, including defense and intelligence, supply chain, insurance, maritime and others,” Rocket Lab wrote in the press kit for Sunday’s mission, that you can find here.

“Its industry-leading SAR satellites are combined with an unparalleled data infrastructure to quickly deliver trusted global insights that advance our understanding of the changing world – improving decisions about commerce, conservation and security on Earth,” Rocket Lab added.

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“A Sky Full of SARS” will be Rocket Lab’s tenth launch of the year and the company’s 52nd orbital mission overall.

Rocket Lab aims to make Electron’s first stage reusable; he has recovered thrusters from the sea several times to date and even reactivated an engine on a previous mission. But the press kit for “A Sky Full of SARS” doesn’t mention anything about a recovery operation, so we can assume that won’t happen on Sunday.