Watch Rocket Lab launch mystery mission for confidential customer today

Rocket Lab will launch a mystery mission this evening (March 5), and you can watch the action live.

An Electron rocket is scheduled to lift off from Rocket Lab's New Zealand site today at 6:53 p.m. EST (2353 GMT; 12:53 p.m. on March 6 local time), kicking off a mission the company calls "Insight at Speed is a Friend Indeed."

You can watch the liftoff here at Space.com courtesy of Rocket Lab, or directly via the company. Coverage will begin about 20 minutes before launch.

We don't know much about "Insight at Speed is a Friend Indeed." Rocket Lab announced the planned launch just a few hours before liftoff and provided few details, saying that it's "for a confidential commercial customer."

Some observers are speculating this customer may be the Virginia company BlackSky, which operates a constellation of sharp-eyed Earth-observation satellites.

Rocket Lab has flown many missions for BlackSky to date and recently has been helping the company build out its new "Gen-3" constellation in low Earth orbit.

Today's launch will be the 76th to date for the 59-foot-tall (18-meter-tall) Electron, which gives small satellites dedicated rides to orbit.

The rocket flew a company-record 18 times last year. Rocket Lab also launched HASTE, a suborbital version of Electron designed to help customers test hypersonic technologies, three times in 2025. All 21 of these missions were successful.