The “Get the Hawk Outta Here” mission saw Rocket Launch juggle four satellites into orbit around Earth on June 27, marking yet another mission on the start-up’s 2025 calendar. The Electron rocket — loaded with three radio-frequency tracking microsatellites and a technology demonstrating payload — lifted off from Pad-A in Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand, at 1:28 p.m. EDT (1728 GMT). The launch is to aid Virginia-based geospatial analytics company Hawkeye 360 with its pursuit to broaden radio-frequency intelligence gathering.

Rocket Lab Launches Cluster 12 RF Satellites for Hawkeye 360, Eyes More Missions in 2025

As per the Rocket Lab’s official mission brief, the three working satellites are designed to help Hawkeye 360 triangulate radio signals across the world. Such spacecraft would fill gaps in coverage and provide radio frequency analytics data in near real time from areas of strategic interest. The fourth payload, Kestrel-0A, is a technology demonstrator meant to test advanced capabilities and future enhancements for the Hawkeye constellation.

Rocket Lab has committed to launching a total of 15 satellites across three missions for Hawkeye 360. This mission is themed “Virginia Is For Launch Lovers” and is Electron’s first mission from U.S. soil following the company’s first launch from Wallops Island in January 2023. This latest mission signifies the 67th overall Electron launch and the ninth of 2025 in a sign of the company’s increasing launch cadence.

All satellites were placed into a polar low Earth orbit at about 320 miles (520 km) altitude, ideal for cross-cutting the Earth and thus ensuring fast revisits and high signal collection. Electron’s payload fairings also did their job, protecting the satellites as they lifted off, then releasing them into orbit with pinpoint accuracy.

In its roadmap, Rocket Lab has at least six additional launches this year, and all eyes are on its upcoming reusable Neutron rocket. The company also operates a suborbital Electron variant, HASTE, which serves as a testbed for hypersonic and defence technologies. The latest launch further solidifies Rocket Lab’s position in the small satellite deployment market.

Astronomers may have just caught a glimpse of the early signs of the formation of “baby” solar systems in the hydrocarbon-rich disc around two young stars in a star-forming region near Earth, in a study that could offer fresh insights into how planetary systems are created. From studying 78 protoplanetary disks — or flattened clouds of gas and dust — in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, researchers spotted spiral and ring-like substructures, which are certain signatures that baby planets are in the process of being born.

The disks, around stars a few hundred thousand years old showed unusual characteristics, indicating that planet and star formation are simultaneous processes in very young systems. In comparison, the Sun is a middle-aged 4.6 billion years old.

High-Res ALMA Imaging Reveals Planet Formation Begins Earlier in Young Star Disks Than Expected

As per the research team, the discovery helps bridge a key observational gap between previous ALMA studies—DSHARP, which focused on million-year-old stars, and eDisk, which studied much younger protostars. By targeting stars of intermediate ages and applying PRIISM super-resolution software to archival ALMA data, researchers achieved images three times sharper than standard methods. Their larger sample led to the identification of 27 disks with structures, including 15 never seen before.

The results indicate that substructures such as rings and spirals, believed to be the fingerprints of planet formation, appear much earlier in a planet’s growth process than previously thought, when the disks are still full of gas and dust. During the childhood of young stars forming in collapsed molecular clouds, these disks were born, and in the same way, young planets formed within the lifetimes of these accretion disks, moved, and shaped the objects in the disk.

Most disks observed were about 30 astronomical units wide, roughly 30 times the Earth-Sun distance. The presence of intricate structures in such early systems implies a parallel evolution of infant stars and planets. The research indicates that star and planet creation might be more closely linked than thought.

The research, which was published on an online site for The Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, was led by Ayumu Shoshi of Kyushu University. The present results involve only the Ophiuchus regions, but in the future, as more data become available, we will be able to search for similar early co-evolution amongst other stellar nurseries.