Electron is Rocket Lab's answer to the massively growing demand for dedicated small satellite launchers.

This Electron is named "Birds of a Feather".

With this flight, Rocket Lab will continue testing recovery technology and systems on Electron.

The first stage will include new hardware and sensors to inform future recovery efforts as well as new reaction control system thrusters to orient the booster during its re-entry descent.

Electron is powered by Rutherford engines, the first electric-pump-fed engine to power an orbital rocket.

Each Electron costs approximately $6 million (USD). It is currently fully expendable, though that will soon change, and can lift up to 225 kg (495 lb) to a 500 km Sun Synchronous Orbit.

Electron flew for the first time in May 2017.

Rocket Lab's Launch Complex 1A (LC-1A) on the Māhia Peninsula on New Zealand's North Island is part of the company's first launch site, with another under construction at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia.

An isolated location, the Māhia launch site hosted its first orbital launch attempt of Electron in May 2017 and its first successful orbital launch in January 2018.

Together with Rocket Lab's third launch pad in Virginia, their launch sites can support up to 132 Electron launch opportunities every year.

The Māhia location has two launch pads (LC-1A and LC-1B) and two separate integration hangers to permit simultaneous and protected processing of two payloads for flight at the same time.

LC-1A is the original pad at the Māhia site, with LC-1B launching its first mission in February 2022.

Photo: Rocket Lab