00:00Hey Space Fans! Tarek Malek with Space.com. I'm here at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility
00:05where we're waiting for Rocket Lab's first US launch of an electron rocket.
00:09It's a gorgeous night. I'm not sure if you can see but we're minutes away from launch.
00:13Whoa! There's the moon and Jupiter and Venus. It's a little too early for
00:19Saturn but we're just a few minutes away from the launch and I'm here with Alex
00:26Mankiewicz. Welcome to the inaugural electron launch from US soil.
00:33That's right, that's right. So we're just minutes away from this launch here. I'm
00:37gonna stay out of his way because he's taking some awesome photos and hopefully
00:42we're gonna get a good show. It's been a very smooth countdown all night long.
00:47Gorgeous sunset launch. That's the rocket right over there. It's a little blurry in
00:53my my video feed but hopefully we're gonna get a good shot.
00:59Oh you can you can hear the rest of the media folks. Let's see if I can get a shot.
01:03That's the the reporters over here on top of the hill.
01:11Right here.
01:14So here we are tonight. There's the rest of the folks. There's an observatory dome
01:21there. Moon! All right. So it's been a very smooth. There was one issue. Oh there it
01:36goes.
02:06It's a spectacular liftoff right there.
02:37It's so bright and it was so loud.
02:46Oh there's a plume. Wow. Look at that plume right there.
03:07Now this is Rocket Lab's Virginia is for launch lovers. A spectacular liftoff you
03:15saw here from Rocket Lab's brand new US launch site. Their first ever launch from
03:23US soil. Looks to be going real real smooth.
03:30It's like there was a satellite way up above that just just passed overhead. You
03:35can see that moving dot. You can still see it. Wow.
03:45It's carrying three Hawkeye 360 radio reconnaissance satellites for Hawkeye 360.
03:53They're a Virginia based company here in in Virginia. Although Rocket Lab is based
04:00up. So we had an engine cutoff right there. And there's second engine or
04:08second stage ignition. So you just saw that wink out right there. That was stage
04:13separation. And you can still see it. Wow. It is still all going all the way up
04:19there.
04:24That is amazing. Launching right over Orion's shoulder as it lifted off there.
04:33You can see in my in my camera phone you can see the stars of Orion. That's the
04:39belt right there in the middle. That is stunning. Still still visible as it's
04:49making its way to orbit. We'll see if we can see a second engine cutoff in a
04:54minute. How'd it look to you, Alex?
05:17That's great. Wow, you can really see the plume now.
05:24Look at that exhaust plume. Wow. Now it's crossing the shoulder of Orion. That's
05:36Betelgeuse right there.
05:41There it goes.
05:44Wow. That was stunning. And you can still see it.
06:05Wow.
06:15You can see it. It's right here. Oh, that's the the second stage still on its
06:22way up. Doing its thing.
06:33We'll see if we can keep seeing it. Now you can really see Orion. Those three
06:39stars of its belt. Betelgeuse to the central left there.
06:48Forgive me for the grainy quality of my camera phone.
06:53I can't believe we can still see it, Alex.
07:23This is the first time Rocket Lab has launched this rocket from U.S. soil. The rocket is about 50 feet tall when it's fully stacked, about 3 feet in diameter.
07:33Alright, it's getting a little hard to track now. I think I'm gonna sign off for
07:39now and we're gonna see how it looks on the real feed, the video feed.
07:53This is the size of a microwave from the company Contact 360.
07:59What those are going to do, those are going to monitor radio frequency as they orbit the planet.
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