{"id":401919,"date":"2026-03-24T20:18:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T20:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/401919\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T20:18:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T20:18:34","slug":"watch-rocket-lab-launch-europes-1st-2-celeste-navigation-satellites-early-march-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/401919\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch Rocket Lab launch Europe’s 1st 2 ‘Celeste’ navigation satellites early March 25"},"content":{"rendered":"

ESA\u2019s Celeste mission launch 1 – YouTube
\n\"ESA\u2019s<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Rocket Lab will launch two pioneering navigation satellites early on Wednesday morning (March 25), and you can watch the action live.<\/p>\n

An Electron<\/a> rocket carrying the first two satellites for the European Space Agency<\/a>‘s (ESA) Celeste navigation constellation is scheduled to lift off from Rocket Lab<\/a>‘s New Zealand site on Wednesday at 5:14 a.m. EDT (0914 GMT; 10:14 p.m. local New Zealand time).<\/p>\n

You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of ESA, or directly via the space agency<\/a>. Coverage will begin about 20 minutes before launch.<\/p>\n

Article continues below <\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

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\"a\n<\/p>\n

A Rocket Lab Electron rocket launches on the “Insight at Speed is a Friend Indeed” mission from New Zealand on March 5, 2026. (Image credit: Rocket Lab)<\/p>\n

Celeste is Europe’s first satellite-navigation effort in low Earth orbit<\/a> (LEO).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The initiative “will demonstrate how a complementary layer flying closer to Earth can enhance Europe\u2019s current Galileo system<\/a> in medium Earth orbit (MEO), boosting the overall resilience, enhancing its performance and opening opportunities for new service capabilities directly from LEO,” ESA officials wrote in a description of Wednesday’s launch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The first phase of the Celeste program will loft a demonstration constellation of 11 satellites. The satellites going up on Wednesday are the first two of that group.<\/p>\n

If all goes according to plan on Wednesday’s launch, which Rocket Lab calls “Daughter of the Stars,” Electron will deliver the two satellites<\/a> to a circular orbit 510 kilometers (317 miles) above Earth. The first spacecraft will deploy 20 minutes after liftoff, and the second will follow four minutes later.<\/p>\n

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!<\/p>\n

“Daughter of the Stars” will be the 78th launch to date for the 59-foot-tall (18-meter-tall) Electron. Rocket Lab has also flown seven missions with a suborbital version of the vehicle called HASTE<\/a>, which customers use primarily to test hypersonic technologies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESA\u2019s Celeste mission launch 1 – YouTube Watch On Rocket Lab will launch two pioneering navigation satellites early…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-401919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-science"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116286004254863918","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}