UPDATE: On Friday, April 14 at 11:48 p.m. PT, Falcon 9 launched Transporter-7, SpaceX’s seventh dedicated smallsat rideshare program mission, from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The launch cost is $52 million.
This was the tenth launch and landing of this Falcon 9 stage booster, which previously supported the launch of Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, DART, and seven Starlink missions. On board this flight were 51 spacecraft including CubeSats, MicroSats, hosted payloads and orbital transfer vehicles.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Hawthorne, California. Its founder, entrepreneur Elon Musk, plans to curtail space transportation costs and enable the colonization of Mars.
The company has pads at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center located in the U.S.’ East Coast, and SLC-4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, which is usually for polar launches. Another launch site is being developed at Boca Chica, Texas.
Following stage separation, the Falcon 9’s first stage returned to Earth to Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) at Vandenberg Space Force Base (photo, below, courtesy of SpaceX).
Transporter-7 is SpaceX’s seventh, dedicated, smallsat rideshare mission.
Previously: The launch director for the Transporter-7 launch called a ‘hold’ on this mission at T-00:28 seconds due to weather constraints. Another attempt to launch this mission will occur on 4/14/23 at 11:47 p.m.
SpaceX is now targeting no earlier than Thursday, April 13th., at 11:47 p.m. PT (06:47 UTC on April 14) for Falcon 9’s launch of the Transporter-7 mission to LEO from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The first stage booster supporting this mission previously launched Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, DART, and seven Starlink missions.
Following stage separation, Falcon 9 will land on Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
Transporter-7 is SpaceX’s seventh, dedicated, smallsat rideshare mission. There will be 51 payloads on this flight, including CubeSats, MicroSats, hosted payloads, and orbital transfer vehicles carrying spacecraft that will be deployed at a later time.
A live webcast of this mission will start about 10 minutes prior to liftoff.
Possible payload list for the Transporter 7 mission… there are also two unspecified smallsats within this payload, as well…
Aarhus University, Denmark
DISCO-1 (1U)
Aerospace Corporation
LLITED A/B (2x 1.5U)
Alba Orbital
Cluster 7
ARCA, Italy
REVELA (3U)
SMPOD03 (hosted payload — 3U deployer)
AstroForge
Brokkr-1 (6U)
D-Orbit
ION
Exolaunch (21 satellites, 16 cubesat, 5 microsat)
Bronco Space (at Cal Poly Pomona)
GomSpace
FACSAT-2 (Colombian Air Force-(6U, Colombian Air Force, GomSpace bus)
EnduroSat
TAIFA-1 (3U, SayariLabs [Kenya]
Sateliot-0
(Platform-3)
ISILAUNCH
on behalf of Orbital Solutions Monaco (OSM) + Laboratoire
Athmosphères
Kenya Space Agency with SayariLabs + EnduroSat
NanoAvionics
DEWA SAT-2 (6U, DEWA, UAE)
Observations Spatiales (LATMOS)
Plan-S
Connecta T2.1 (6U)
SSS-2B
Spire Global
Space Flight Laboratory
NORSAT-TD (~40kg, Space Flight Laboratory for Norwegian Space Agency)
Stanford Student Space Initiative
Sapling-2
TÜBİTAK UZAY
IMECE (800 kg., TÜBİTAK UZAY, Turkey)
Unseenlabs
BRO-9 (6U)
GHGSat
GHGSat-C6/C7/C8 (3x 15k g.)
Hawkeye 360
Cluster 7 (3x 33 kg.)
InspireSat 7
(2U, Latmos)
ISILaunch
IRIS-C (3U, NCKU, Taiwan)
Istanbul
(1P, Hello Space)
Kepler Space
Kepler (2x 6U)
KILICSAT
(3U, Turkey)
LEMUR-2
ONREFLECTION
ROMEO-N-LEO
SPACEGUS
Maverick
Momentus
Vigoride VR-6
Orbital Sidekick
GHOSt (2x microsat)
Orbital Solutions Monaco
RoseyCubesat-1 (1U, ISIS platform)
RomSpace, Romania
ROM-2 (1P)
Satellogic
NewSat 36-39 (4x microsat)
Solar Array
(hosted payload)
Spire Global
(2x 6U for customers, 1x 3U)
Technical University of Budapest, Hungary
MRC-100 (3P)
Tomorrow.io
Tomorrow-R1 (85 kg)
Umbra
Umbra-06
University of Colorado Denver
CIRBE (3U, CU Boulder/LASP)
VIREO
(3U, C3S, Hungary)
Two undisclosed smallsats