This launch will be our third dedicated mission with @hawkeye360 satellites to expand their RF-sensing constellation. 🚀 "Virginia Is For Launch Lovers", 2023, LC-2 🚀 "Get The Hawk Outta Here", 2025, LC-1 🚀 Up next: "We're Not Hawking Around", 2026, LC-1

Blue skies for launch. Electron is vertical on the pad and ready for our 98th launch with a mission for @hawkeye360. 'We're Not Hawking Around' launch window opens: 🚀8:00pm NZDT 🚀07:00 UTC 🚀3:00 am EDT 🚀00:00 am PDT

We're back on the pad at LC-1 with our next launch attempt for Electron's 98th mission - "We're Not Hawking Around" for @hawkeye360 Launch window opens: 🚀8:00pm NZDT 🚀07:00 UTC 🚀3:00 am EDT 🚀00:00 am PDT

Faster tests. Double the capacity. Built for reliability. Supporting an increased launch cadence in 2027🚀

It's being built to take a beating. Upgrading from our heritage high temperature ceramic ramp, the new facility features a stainless steel, water-cooled ramp to absorb the extreme heat and force of engine exhaust, test after test. And it's designed for all-weather testing, meaning a predictable test cadence come rain, wind, or shine.

Demand for Electron and HASTE missions continues to grow and our manifest has never been busier. To increase launch cadence, streamlining production and test operations is key. The new facility will cut stack test time in half, from 2–3 days down to less than a day.

First, what's a stack test? Before Electron's first or second stage flies, we fire it here on Earth as an integrated system, with Rutherford engines igniting and plumbing and avionics all working together just as they will on launch day. This process is called a static fire or a stack test. It’s one of the final tests before we move into wet dress rehearsal on the launch pad in Wallops or Mahia, and then onto launch day.  Every single Electron and HASTE rocket launched so far have been through this process. (This video features the existing stack facility, not the new one)

High cadence launch needs high cadence testing. With more than 100 launches in backlog (and counting), we're building a new state-of-the-art test facility to accelerate static fire stack testing for Electron and HASTE rockets. Check out the new test pad underway within our Propulsion Test Complex 🧵👇

We have completed breakover operations for the Neutron Stage 2 tank assembly, rotating the stage horizontal – a critical step in the handling of large rocket sections for integration and assembly. Here’s a last look at Stage 2 on the Neutron Factory floor before it’s wrapped up (literally) for barge shipment to LC-3 on Wallops Island where its fluid systems will be tested and its Archimedes vacuum engine installed.

The Maxwell spacecraft is in orbit and ready to get to work. The spacecraft we built for @viasat launched from Cape Canaveral yesterday. Over the next five months, it will demonstrate how Viasat's ViaSat-3 Ka-band and global L-band networks can give low Earth orbit missions near real-time data and telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) at any point in orbit, supporting @NASA's Communications Services Project as it prepares to retire its TDRS fleet. Congratulations to the Viasat team on a successful launch!