520 km: Altitude for Three New RF Monitoring Satellites
A Rocket Lab launch from New Zealand expanded the HawkEye 360 fleet by three units, which will scan the globe for radio signals.
By Yasmin Duda ·
Three commercial satellites entered low Earth orbit early Thursday morning after a launch from New Zealand. The spacecraft, built for the Virginia-based company HawkEye 360, will begin scanning the planet for radio frequency emissions once they reach their designated altitude.
An Electron rocket lifted off at 3:11 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, which was 8:11 p.m. local time in New Zealand. Rocket Lab named the mission "We're Not Hawking Around." If the mission proceeds as planned, the three units will settle into an orbit 323 miles, or 520 kilometers, above the Earth.
HawkEye 360 sells its data to the U.S. government and allied nations. The company states that its goal is to help leaders make faster decisions by turning radio spectrum knowledge into a strategic advantage. The satellites work in clusters to track maritime activity, detect GPS jamming, monitor radar, map communications, and support space defense.
This launch follows a previous deployment just two days earlier. Three similar satellites flew on a SpaceX Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission last week. Since 2018, HawkEye 360 has placed nearly 50 satellites in low Earth orbit.
The Thursday flight marked Rocket Lab's 98th launch in total and its 19th of 2026. Sixteen of this year's missions used the two-stage Electron rocket, which stands 59 feet tall. The remaining three flights used HASTE, a suborbital version of the vehicle that allows customers to test technology in a hypersonic environment.
Source: Space.com
