Welcome home Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy! 🫶
The Artemis II astronauts have splashed down at 8:07pm ET (0007 UTC April 11), bringing their historic 10-day mission around the Moon to an end.
Liftoff.
The Artemis II mission launched from @NASAKennedy at 6:35pm ET (2235 UTC), propelling four astronauts on a journey around the Moon.
Artemis II will pave the way for future Moon landings, as well as the next giant leap — astronauts on Mars.
More than 100 spacecraft were safely deployed to precise orbits by Rocket Lab separation systems in 2025, soaring past our previous annual record of 64 separations.
Another year of 100% mission success for these critical systems.
The cameras are up and running on Blue and Gold! 📸
The visible-light image (left) suggests we should have the sensitivity to image Martian aurora from orbit. The infrared camera (right) will be used at Mars to better understand how materials on the surface heat up and cool down during Mars’ day-night cycle and over the planet’s seasons.
Today’s Electron launch by the numbers:
✅ 70th mission overall
✅ 12th launch from LC-1 this year
✅ 100% mission success in 2025
✅ Launched on 1st attempt
🚀 MISSION SUCCESS! All Cluster 12 satellites and Kestral-0A have been successfully deployed to their 520km low Earth orbit for @hawkeye360.
That’s 231 payloads deployed by Electron, our 67th mission overall, and 9th launch from LC-1 this year.
Another day, another QPS-SAR satellite deployed to space by Electron 🛰️🛰️🛰️🛰️
‘The Mountain God Guards’ was the 4th of 8 missions launching on Electron to build the @QPS_Inc Earth-imaging constellation. Each satellite is deployed with our Motorized Lightband separation system with a flight heritage of 100% mission success.
Our next mission (and next God) for iQPS launching soon 👀
Rocket Lab’s separation systems have a 100% success rate across more than 20 years of launches—trusted by commercial, civil, and national security customers to deploy critical payloads with confidence.
Reliable. Flight-proven. Built to perform.
Learn more: https://t.co/11m8cBuOwQ
🚀 From a childhood dream to a company of over 2,500 strong, Rocket Lab has been breaking barriers since 2009!
🏆 Proud to be ranked No. 9 on @FastCompany's World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies list and No. 1 in the Space category! The future of space is here at Rocket Lab – https://t.co/qIehOrymcJ
Mission success for our 59th Electron launch 🚀
Five new satellites are now in orbit for @KineisIOT.
That’s mission 4 of 5 to build out @KineisIOT’s internet-of-things constellation.
Perfect Curie burn and payload deployment for @NASA PREFIRE-1!
That's mission success for #ReadyAimPREFIRE, our 48th Electron launch.
Missed the launch? Catch the replay. https://t.co/knzNM53Whs
W-1 is home 🌎 🛰️
A phenomenal effort from our space systems team. Bullseye for our first reentry mission.
Thank you to the @VardaSpace team. Let's do it all again for W-2 soon.