Electron, topped by YAMATSUMI-II (a.k.a. QPS-SAR-19) satellite, lifted off Saturday(Nov. 14), at 0530 UTC, from Launch Complex 1 (LC-1), Mahia Peninsula New Zealand, on the "The Mountain God Rises" mission, completing the 100th launch of the Rocket Lab's rocket, and marking a historic milestone as the fastest commercial rocket to reach triple-digit flights.

The rocket's upper "kick stage" deployed a single iQPS spacecraft 575 kilometers with a 42-degree inclination above Earth. The satellite successfully separated about 50 minutes after liftoff, with iQPS confirming first communications and antenna deployment shortly thereafter.

YAMATSUMI-II is a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite built for the Tokyo-based company iQPS, as the company expands its constellation of 36 SAR satellites designed to provide high-resolution Earth imaging through clouds and at night. This was iQPS’s 11th launch with Rocket Lab, with seven additional dedicated Electron launches booked through 2030 to complete the constellation.

Electron achieved 100 launches in less than a decade since its debut in 2017, surpassing previous records for commercially developed rockets.

"It's an unprecedented milestone for a commercial small-lift orbital rocket, and a threshold rarely crossed in modern spaceflight," Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said on Monday (Nov. 9), during Rocket Lab's third-quarter earnings call with investors. "But what matters most to us and our customers is that we have achieved a 96% reliability rate across 99 launches."

In the years since, the 18-meter-tall rocket has become one of the most prolific and reliable rockets in the world, carrying small payloads to the final frontier for a variety of customers. SpaceX workhorse, Falcon 9, still dominates the mass-to-orbit by far, launching nearly 85% of the world's payloads to orbit. The Elon Musk company launched the world's most powerful megarocket, Starship, from its Starbase launch site earlier on Friday(Nov. 13)

Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia CEO, President, and board member effective immediately, Thursday, following an internal investigation into multiple extramarital affairs and alleged foreign intelligence threats. Jewish CFO Colette Kress has been named interim CEO, while the board appoints a permanent successor.

The departure followed recent reports that Huang had an affair with Alice Huang (no relation), a Chinese national and executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, whom U.S. intelligence suspects is a Chinese spy. Huang admitted to being "unfaithful to my wife" on November 8, but denied compromising national security.

On Wednesday, reports emerged of two other affairs, one with an unnamed employee, and a second affair with Nvidia VP of Healthcare Kimberly Powell -- who reported directly to him with sources claiming the two were seen being affectionate as recently as March 2026, raising direct corporate governance and conflict-of-interest violations.

The reports prompted the board to accept Huang's resignation late Wednesday, appointed Harvey Jones as its first chair and hired outside counsel Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct an independent investigation.

The scandal triggered significant concern over U.S. security, as Megaspeed allegedly used its relationship with Huang to access 240,000 restricted AI chips banned from export to China, potentially benefiting competitor Huawei.

The FBI is investigating the ties, and Huang has agreed to testify before Congress. President Donald Trump called the news "horrible" and in a Truth Social post Thursday, suggested ex-Apple CEO Tim Cook as a successor.

Nvidia stock dropped as much as 14% on the news before recovering some ground, closing down approximately 4%.

Following Kress's appointment as interim CEO,, social media commentators and viral online posts began questioning whether Huang’s ouster amounted to an "Israeli coup" inside Nvidia. Critics pointed to a July 2023 interview with Israeli business daily Globes, in which Kress noted that her workday typically begins with meetings with Nvidia’s Israeli executives before moving on to California. Others noted that Nvidia’s board is searching for a permanent CEO and speculated that Israeli executives—such as Nvidia CTO Michael Kagan (co-founder of Mellanox) or Apple hardware chief Johny Srouji—could be contenders.

Nvidia’s footprint in Israel dates back to its $6.9 billion acquisition of Israeli networking firm Mellanox in 2020, a deal spearheaded by Huang himself. By 2026, Nvidia employed nearly 6,000 people in Israel (roughly 12% of its global workforce), and its Mellanox-derived networking division generated roughly $40 billion in annual revenue—about 16% of Nvidia's total.

Prior to Nvidia, Kress spent eight years in finance at Texas Instruments, 13 years at Microsoft (including four years as CFO of its Server and Tools division), and three years as a senior finance executive at Cisco. Her first major test arrives on November 17, 2026, when Nvidia is scheduled to report its fiscal third-quarter earnings.

SpaceX Falcon 9 launched the classified USSF-627 mission for the U.S. Space Force Thursday (Nov. 12) at 0136 UTC from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E), Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, marking the 120th Falcon 9 launch of the year.

The Falcon 9 first-stage booster, B1103, completed its seventh flight and as planned, landed on the autonomous droneship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean about 8.5 minutes after liftoff. B1103 previously flew on one National Reconnaissance Office mission, two Space Development Agency missions, and three Starlink deployments.

USSF-627 remains classified with no official details on orbit, mass, or objectives. Observers speculate the payload consists of Starshield satellites supporting the Space Based Sensing and Targeting (SBST) portfolio, based on second-stage drop zone similarities to previous Starlink Group 15 launches. However, this connection is unconfirmed by SpaceX or the U.S. Space Force.

This mission occurred just six days after USSF-432 (launched November 6), demonstrating SpaceX’s rapid turnaround capabilities from Vandenberg.