Rocket Lab’s Electron smallsat launch vehicle successfully Returned To Flight with a mission nicknamed “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Optical”. This was the company’s first launch following an anomaly on the “Pics or it Didn’t Happen” flight that led to that mission’s failure.
For its 14th flight, Electron carried Capella Space’s “Sequoia” microsatellite to a low-Earth orbit (LEO) from Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula. Liftoff occurred August 31 at 03:05 UTC (11:05 pm EDT on the 30th).