WASHINGTON - Rocket Lab has kicked off a military exercise that's essentially the space equivalent of two cars playing bumper cars, except with multi-million dollar satellites and a lot more acronyms. On June 19, the company launched the Victus Haze Puma spacecraft aboard an Electron rocket from its New Zealand launch site, under a $32 million contract from the U.S. Space Force.

The satellite is now in sun-synchronous orbit, where it will spend some time getting its space legs before rendezvousing with a spacecraft operated by Colorado startup True Anomaly. The exercise is the fourth under the Space Force's Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) program, which aims to prove that commercial providers can launch satellites on military timelines faster than you can say 'space domain awareness.'

Building on the 2023 Victus Nox demo - where Firefly Aerospace launched a satellite within 27 hours of receiving a launch order - Victus Haze expands the concept to include maneuvering, inspecting, and characterizing objects in orbit. The goal: turn responsive launch from a neat party trick into an actual military capability, because future conflicts may require replacing damaged satellites or investigating suspicious space behavior in days, not months.

Rocket Lab managed to launch within 16 hours and 42 minutes of the notice-to-launch order, beating the 24-hour requirement. Their guidance team calculated a trajectory to a previously undisclosed orbit in about four hours, and the spacecraft completed commissioning in 37 hours and 36 minutes - 34 hours ahead of the 72-hour deadline. True Anomaly's Jackal-004, which launched May 3 on a SpaceX Falcon 9, is reportedly 'fully operational and ready to execute rendezvous and proximity operations.'

Col. Bryon McClain, acting Space Force portfolio acquisition executive for Space Combat Power, noted that the exercise demonstrates 'our ability to respond to irresponsible behavior on orbit under operationally realistic conditions.' Because nothing says 'responsible' like a high-stakes game of space chicken with taxpayer-funded hardware.