Rocket Lab USA (RKLB) continued its strong launch cadence to start the year by completing its second Electron mission in eight days with the deployment of a Korean Earth-imaging satellite for KAIST, which is South Korea’s leading science and technology university. The new mission was dubbed “Bridging the Swarm.”
Lifting off from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 2:21 p.m. NZDT on January 30, the Electron rocket delivered the NEONSAT-1A satellite into a 540 km low Earth orbit. NEONSAT-1A is an advanced Earth-observation spacecraft designed to validate technologies for South Korea’s planned NEONSAT constellation, which aims to monitor natural disasters and national security events along the Korean Peninsula.
The launch marked the company’s 81st Electron launch and was noted to underscore growing demand for small-satellite access to orbit from both commercial and government customers.
“We cemented our position as the leader in reliable and responsive launch with our record-breaking year of launches in 2025, and these latest launches show we’re gearing up for an even busier launch year in 2026,” stated CEO Sir Peter Beck.
Shares of Rocket Lab (RKLB) fell 2.8% in premarket trading on Friday but are still up more than 20% on a year-to-date basis. Short interest on RKLB is slightly elevated at 7.4% of the total float.