Watch Rocket Lab launch 4 experimental 'DiskSats' for the US military tonight

Rocket Lab will launch a new type of satellite for the U.S. Space Force tonight, and you can watch the action live.

An Electron rocket carrying four "DiskSats" is scheduled to lift off from Rocket Lab's pad on Wallops Island, Virginia during a window of unspecified length that opens Thursday (Dec. 18) at midnight EST (0500 GMT).

You can watch the action live here at Space.com, courtesy of Rocket Lab, or directly via the company.

The upcoming launch, which Rocket Lab calls "Don't Be Such a Square," will kick off the Space Test Program (STP)-S30 mission for the U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command.

STP-30 will deploy and operate the first-ever DiskSats, a new type of spacecraft developed by The Aerospace Corporation with funding help from NASA. At 40 inches wide by just 1 inch thick (102 by 2.5 centimeters), each DiskSat has the approximate dimension of a manhole cover.

That odd shape could lead to greater performance in the final frontier for small satellites, which have traditionally employed the boxy "cubesat" form factor.

DiskSats "could offer more power and surface area for instruments, providing more opportunities for NASA to expand upon target mission objectives for small spacecraft," agency officials wrote in a description of the new tech.

"With its ability to fly continuously with one face pointing at the Earth, the DiskSat can also have a very low drag, making them capable of very-low altitude missions (less than 300 kilometers or 185 miles) such as those necessary for some Earth-observation missions," NASA added.

The DiskSats won't be flying so low on their inaugural mission, however. If all goes to plan on "Don't Be Such a Square," the Electron will deploy the quartet at an altitude of 342 miles (550 km) about 55.5 minutes after launch, according to Rocket Lab's mission description.

Rocket Lab initially planned to launch "Don't Be Such a Square" in April 2026 but expedited it at the Space Force's request, the company said in an emailed statement.

The mission will be Rocket Lab's 20th of 2025, extending the company's single-year launch record. The previous high was 16, set in 2024. Most of these have been orbital flights of the 59-foot-tall (18 meters) Electron, which gives small satellites dedicated rides to Earth orbit. But three were suborbital missions conducted by HASTE, a modified version of Electron that lets customers test hypersonic technologies in the space environment.