First up, on Tuesday, December 15th at 10:09 UTC, Rocket Lab launched an Electron from its launch site on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. This was the seventh launch of 2020 for Rocket Lab, the seventeenth Electron launch overall, and the ninety-sixth payload launched by Electron.

The mission, named The Owl’s Night Begins, delivered Synspective’s StriX-α synthetic aperture radar satellite to a 500-kilometer orbit.

According to Synspective: The StriX-α satellite will demonstrate [their] synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology … to be able to image millimeter-level changes to the Earth’s surface from space, independent of weather conditions on Earth and at any time of the day or night.

StriX-α is the first of more than thirty satellites planned by Synspective to form a constellation in low Earth orbit to collate data on a daily basis that can be used for urban development planning, construction, and infrastructure monitoring, and disaster response across Asia.

Unlike the last Electron launch, Rocket Lab did not attempt to recover the first stage.

More Information

Rocket Lab press release 

Rocket Lab mission page 

Synspective press release 

Strix-α info page (Gunter’s Space Page)