Rocket Lab and the Victus Haze Mission for the Space Force: From Order to Launch in Less Than 20 Hours in View of Future Threats

Space is a source of significant developments from a scientific perspective, but since the launch of the first artificial satellites, it has been clear that it could also be a place where states might "collide." Over time, various types of military satellites have been launched, from those for monitoring to missions designed to damage vehicles of enemy powers. One of the latest developments concerns the Victus Haze mission carried out by Rocket Lab on behalf of the Space Force.

This mission was requested by the Space Systems Command of the U.S. Space Force within the Space Safari program, in collaboration with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). The purpose, like other missions of this type, is to demonstrate how launch service providers can respond to a requirement of the Department of War (DoW) with very little notice and a short time frame, enabling the identification of space threats from hostile states.

Rocket Lab and the Victus Haze Mission

Specifically, the Victus Haze mission was launched at 11:19 AM on June 19 (Italian time) from Launch Complex 1 of the company in New Zealand using the lightweight Electron rocket. The launch took place only 16 hours and 42 minutes after the order was received from the Space Force, beating the previous record set by the Victus Nox mission by over 10 hours.

The payload of the vehicle is called Victus Haze Puma or more simply PUMA, also made by Rocket Lab. It is a spacecraft based on the Pioneer bus and designed to conduct rendezvous and proximity operations with other spacecraft. This would allow the Space Force to gather information on hostile military satellites and anticipate effective countermeasures.

Since it was a test, the selected target was a friendly "target" satellite called Jackal, made by True Anomaly (launched previously). As explained by the company, "Rocket Lab's Pioneer satellite is currently conducting rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) in low Earth orbit, simulating a rapid response scenario to a threat near a non-collaborative satellite. With space being an increasingly contested domain, the ability to quickly launch a satellite, pursue an object in space, photograph it, and monitor its behavior in real time provides the U.S. and its allies with the capability for space domain awareness and vital information necessary to maintain U.S. superiority in space."

According to Rocket Lab, the dedicated trajectory calculation team took 4 hours to set up the information, update the software, and coordinate the ground stations once the target was known. In total, it took 37 hours and 36 minutes to make the satellite operational and execute the first orbital maneuver, thus staying well within the 72-hour deadline for these operations.

On June 23, the Victus Haze Puma satellite arrived 100 km from the target, while on June 25, the Jackal satellite (target) executed an evasive maneuver. This kind of operation simulates a real scenario of space threat that could be employed in the future for actual missions. In the coming days, there may be further orbital maneuvers to continue data collection.