Rocket Lab launches eight satellites for JAXA, including origami-fold antenna

Rocket Lab’s 79th Electron launch lifted off from New Zealand on April 22, deploying eight satellites for Japan’s JAXA as part of the Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration Program. The mission, Kakushin Rising, includes educational smallsats, an ocean-monitoring satellite, a multispectral-camera demonstration, and a deployable origami antenna that unfurls to 25 times its packed size. The payloads were placed into a ~540 km low Earth orbit about an hour after liftoff, following JAXA’s earlier RAISE‑4 mission.