Washington – Rocket Lab launched a fourth set of satellites for French company Kinis February 8 as it expands its lead in the small launch sector.
A rocket lab electron removed the company’s launch complex 1, Pad A, 3:43 pm. The vehicle kick stage deployed its payload of five satellites after an hour of liftoff in classrooms with a planned height of 646 km and an inclination of 97 degrees.
The launch was that four out of four rocket labs are performing for Kinis, a French company that is developing a constellation for the Internet of Things Services, after the launch in June, September and November 2024. Companies signed a contract for five electron launch in 2021, which in 2021 to deploy to deploy to deploy to deploy to deploy.
Kisi officials said that the final decline said that they were expected to be full constellation in service in mid -2012. At that time the company said that early services including Internet of Things Communications and Automatic Identification System (AIS) tracking, can start using the first 10 satellites in the beginning of 2025, but it has not given any updates since then.
The company announced on 23 December that its founder CEO, Alexandre Tissent, had left the post, but did not give the reason for his departure. Christofe Wasal, chairman of the company’s supervisory board, is temporarily leading the Kin, a new Chief Executive Officer has been appointed in the first quarter with plans.
“I am proud to leave Kinis after many exciting years filled with collective success and ambitious projects,” Tissent said in a statement. “I am confident that the company is now deployed concretely to continue its growth and development.”
Bake: Small launch is “plow”
The launch is for the Rocket Lab this year, which launched 16 electrons in 2024, consisting of two rockets in a hasty rocket. The company has not disclosed a specific target for 2025, but described IT projects as more than that mark.
That activity has made the rocket lab a leading player in the small launch market as many of its contestants have struggled technically or financially. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Peter Beck adopted a win in a main presentation on 4 February at the smallsat seminar.
“Our idea is that the small launch is well and actually being resolved,” he said in the video distributed by the video. “Electron has been very successful there.”
He argued that Electron had found a niche for customers seeking a dedicated launch of smallsats and was ready to pay a premium compared to rideshare options such as SpaceX’s Transporter and Bandwagan Mission. “Most people thought it would end the short launch,” he said about those rideshare options. “But, in fact, it was not at all. The small launch has grown and growing, and every year we signed more and more deals and launch more and more.”
It includes a contract rocket lab, which was declared on 4 February for the Japanese Company Institute of Q-Pioneers of Space, or ICP for the launch of four electron of radar imaging satellites. Three of them are scheduled for the launch 2025 and for the fourth for 2026, each has a single IQPS satellite.
Bake, in a statement about the contract, said that the electron is well adapted to deploy the constellations because those systems “deployed the spacecraft in the exact classes to maximize the data collection or service provision of the overall constellations. A spacecraft is required. “It is a unique and reliable service that launches dedicated on electrons.”
In her keynote speaker, Bake said that she was unrelated to emerging in SpaceX’s starship such as “super heavy” rockets. “They are great for special purposes, but they do not solve every problem,” he said, given that large passenger jets such as Airbus A380 have not erased the market for small aircraft.
He said, “Super Heavys are going to be amazing for an entire bunch of interplenate and cool accessories,” he concluded, “but I do not subscribe to the scene that they destroy all the launch.”
