From its launch center in New Zealand, a United States company has orbited a Japanese satellite that will expand the reach of an Earth observation constellation providing data at all hours and in all weather for both civil and military use.
The Electron launch vehicle from Rocket Lab Corp. blasted off May 22 carrying a StriX satellite from Synspective Inc. on a mission called “Viva La StriX.” Strix is an ancient Greek and Latin word for some of nature’s best night watchers — a genus of forest-dwelling owls.
The mission is the ninth in a Synspective constellation that is delivering imagery for urban development planning, construction and infrastructure monitoring, and disaster response. In addition, as a dual-use system, the StriX constellation is also supporting the Japanese Ministry of Defense by contributing to a commercial-led military reconnaissance network.
The latest StriX satellite was placed in low Earth orbit at an altitude of about 572 kilometers. Additional launches will expand the constellation to some 30 satellites by 2030, according to Rocket Lab.
The constellation generates images via synthetic aperture radar (SAR), which can “see” through clouds and darkness by using energy pulses rather than light, Synspective said in a report at its website. The antenna on each SAR satellite picks up and combines multiple data inputs, enabling them to achieve the image resolution of a much larger spacecraft.
Synspective provides customers with SAR data as well as proprietary data analysis.
“Global data analysis requires wide-ranging, uniform, reliable, and unbiased data delivered in near real-time,” the company said at its website. “A constellation of Earth observation (EO) satellites that can monitor the Earth’s surface, in conjunction with a system that can extract valuable insights at scale from large amounts of data captured by EO satellites, can achieve this.”
The Ministry of Defense selected Synspective in December 2025 as one of seven Japanese companies to develop a military satellite constellation. The project will provide persistent imagery intelligence “that strengthens Japan’s defense posture through enhanced situational awareness and reconnaissance capabilities,” Synspective said.
Synspective will contribute satellite imagery data to the project, “strengthening national security and enhancing Japan’s industrial competitiveness,” the company said. The other industry partners are Mitsubishi Electric Corp., SKY Perfect JSAT Corp., Mitsui & Co. Ltd., Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space Inc., Axelspace Corp. and Mitsui Bussan Aerospace Co. Ltd.
The constellation is part of a push by Japan starting in 2018 to develop space-based military capabilities to guard against potential aggression from the People’s Republic of China and North Korea. Japan cooperates with a number of nations on space-based military intelligence and surveillance, including fellow members of the Combined Space Operations Initiative — Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom and the U.S.
Tokyo-based Synspective was founded in 2018 by Dr. Motoyuki Arai, who began his career with a U.S.-based consulting firm. Among the directors of the company’s U.S. subsidiary are Ronda Schrenk, CEO of the nonprofit U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation and a former executive with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
Rocket Lab has launched all StriX satellites so far, beginning in 2020, and is scheduled to launch the remaining mission payloads. The launch vehicle is the company’s Electron, the second most frequently deployed U.S. rocket behind SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
Rocket Lab was founded in New Zealand in 2006 and executed the nation’s first rocket launch three years later from its site on the Māhia Peninsula, the world’s first private orbital-launch complex. The success of Rocket Lab under founder Peter Beck drew interest from the U.S. defense industry, and the company moved to California in 2013. Long Beach is its headquarters.