Launch Date: May 25, 2024
Launch Time: 3:41 a.m. EDT, 07:41 UTC, 09:41 CEST
Launch Status: Mission Accomplished
Launch Provider: Rocket Lab, USA
Launcher System: Electron Rocket
Mission: Ready, Aim, PREFIRE
Contractor: NASA
Launch Location: Launch Complex-1 - Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand
Ready, Aim, PREFIRE is the first of two back-to-back Electron launches to deploy NASA’s PREFIRE (Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment) mission.
The two dedicated missions will each deploy one satellite to a 525km circular orbit from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand. The first mission, ‘Ready, Aim, PREFIRE’, will not launch before May 25, 2024. The launch date of the second mission, ‘PREFIRE And Ice’, will be scheduled to take place within three weeks of the successful deployment of the first PREFIRE mission.
NASA’s PREFIRE mission is a climate change-focused mission that will systematically measure the heat, in the form of infrared and far-infrared wavelengths, lost from Earth’s polar regions for the first time. Extreme storms, flooding, and coastal erosion are examples of weather outcomes that are influenced by climate conditions in the Arctic and Antarctica. Once deployed to their separate orbits, the two PREFIRE satellites will criss-cross over the Arctic and Antarctica, measuring thermal infrared radiation – the same type of energy emitted from a heat lamp – that will make climate models more accurate and help predict changes caused by global warming. PREFIRE consists of two 6U CubeSats with a baseline mission length of 10 months.
The missions will be Rocket Lab’s 48th and 49th Electron launches overall and its sixth and seventh launches of 2024.
