Rocket Lab launches 8 wildfire-hunting satellites into orbit from New Zealand (video)

Rocket Lab has launched its workhorse Electron rocket for the third time in two weeks.

The New Zealand-based company successfully launched eight wildfire detection satellites on the "Finding Hot Wildfires Near You" mission for German-based company OroraTech today (March 26), from Rocket Lab's New Zealand launch facility.

Electron launched from Pad B at the company's Launch Complex 1, Mahia. Liftoff occurred at 11:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT) March 26 — with a local time of 4:30 a.m. NZT, March 27. The 59-foot (18-meter), three-stage rocket dropped its core booster about 2.5 minutes into flight, with the second stage firing to propel the vehicle up to orbital speeds, followed by Electron's kick stage fine-tuning the mission's orbit. Electron deployed its payloads two at a time, just under an hour after launch, where the satellites began their synchronized orbital alignment and fire-detection mission.

The small fleet will join a constellation of thermal infrared imaging spacecraft already in space, which will enable OroraTech to monitor wildfires and wildfire hotspots around-the-clock across the globe. These Phase 1 satellites, as OroraTech has designated them, will orbit at a steep 97-degree inclination, at an altitude of 340 miles (550 kilometers) above Earth, and are the humble beginning in a constellation the company hopes to grow to over 100 in the next five years.

"Imagine regular people, foresters, using our modeling on their mobile phones in the field to calculate where fires are spreading in real time, and using real time data from space and connecting that world to regular people, all of us, to space data seamlessly. That's the job we're doing," said OroraTech CEO Martin Langer in a video during the launch broadcast.

"Finding Hot Wildfires Near You" is a rapid turnaround mission for Rocket Lab and OroraTech, who scheduled the mission for liftoff only four months ago. The expediency allows the company's constellation to get up and running just before wildfire season begins.

This is Rocket Lab's fifth launch of 2025, with another expected within the next few weeks. That mission, DART AE, will liftoff using the company's HASTE (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron) vehicle, a suborbital version of Electron, to test hypersonic drone technology for the U.S. Defense Department.