Watch On
Rocket Lab will launch two pioneering navigation satellites early on Wednesday morning (March 25), and you can watch the action live.
Article continues below
Celeste is Europe’s first satellite-navigation effort in low Earth orbit (LEO).
The initiative “will demonstrate how a complementary layer flying closer to Earth can enhance Europe’s current Galileo system in medium Earth orbit (MEO), boosting the overall resilience, enhancing its performance and opening opportunities for new service capabilities directly from LEO,” ESA officials wrote in a description of Wednesday’s launch.
The first phase of the Celeste program will loft a demonstration constellation of 11 satellites. The satellites going up on Wednesday are the first two of that group.
If all goes according to plan on Wednesday’s launch, which Rocket Lab calls “Daughter of the Stars,” Electron will deliver the two satellites to a circular orbit 510 kilometers (317 miles) above Earth. The first spacecraft will deploy 20 minutes after liftoff, and the second will follow four minutes later.
“Daughter of the Stars” will be the 78th launch to date for the 59-foot-tall (18-meter-tall) Electron. Rocket Lab has also flown seven missions with a suborbital version of the vehicle called HASTE, which customers use primarily to test hypersonic technologies.
