Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space, or iQPS, said its QPS-SAR-20 radar satellite, named WADATSUMI-II, is scheduled to launch aboard a Rocket Lab Electron on The Sea God Surveys mission no earlier than Nov. 3, 2026.
iQPS updated the window on Oct. 28 to no earlier than Nov. 3. The prior target had been no earlier than Nov. 4, and the company listed a mid-inclined orbit at 575 kilometers altitude. The firm's Japanese notice says the flight is a dedicated Electron launch for the satellite.
Synthetic aperture radar, or SAR, uses microwave pulses to form images of Earth's surface and can observe through clouds and darkness. iQPS says it developed a patented large deployable antenna and that QPS-SAR is a high-resolution small satellite "just 1/20th the weight and 1/100th the cost of traditional SAR satellites." The firm aims to build a constellation of 24 satellites by May 2028 and deploy more by 2030, seeking observation of specific regions at an average interval of 10 minutes.