Rocket Lab successfully launches secret NRO spy satellites

March 21 (UPI) -- U.S.-based Rocket Lab launched an Electron rocket topped with secret U.S. spy satellites early Thursday from Virginia.

The NROL-123 mission, called Live and Let Fly, launched at 3:25 a.m. EDT from Rocket Lab's dedicated Launch Complex 2 pad at the Virginia Spaceport Authority Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Wallops, Va.

The mission was scheduled to launch at 2:40 a.m. but a hold pushed it to the end of the launch window.

The mission is Rocket Lab's fifth all time for the National Reconnaissance Office and the company's first for the U.S. department from the United States.

Little information about the mission was made publicly available. No close up shots of the payload were permitted during the live broadcast by the NRO.

"NRO missions provide critical information to more than a half-million government users, including every member of the intelligence community, two dozen domestic agencies, the military, lawmakers and decision makers," Rocket Lab said in a release on the mission.

Rocket Lab acquired the mission through the NRO's Rapid Acquisition of a Small Rocket contract, which seeks to provide the office with a streamlined, commercial option for launching small orbitals into space.

The U.S-based company has launched 46 Electron missions. Excluding Thursday's launch, Rocket Lab has put 178 satellites into space.