SpaceX successfully delivered 140 payloads to orbit on Friday, marking a major milestone for the company’s growing Smallsat Rideshare program. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 10:44 a.m. PST (1:44 p.m. EST / 1844 UTC), two days after a scrub caused by a ground-systems issue halted an earlier launch attempt.
Falcon 9 lifts off on the Transporter-15 rideshare mission. Credit: SpaceX
Friday’s mission, Transporter-15, represented the 19th dedicated rideshare flight and followed a series of similar deployments earlier this year in January, March, and June. SpaceX also expanded its mid-inclination rideshare service in 2024 with the Bandwagon-3 and Bandwagon-4 missions.
The company flew the mission on one of its most seasoned boosters, Falcon 9 first stage B1071, which made its 30th flight—only the second booster in the fleet to reach that milestone. B1071 has supported a wide range of missions, including five flights for the National Reconnaissance Office, NASA’s SWOT mission, and multiple earlier Transporter and Bandwagon rideshares.
Roughly eight and a half minutes after liftoff, the booster once again returned to spaceport operations with a precise autonomous landing on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You. The touchdown marked the 165th successful landing on this vessel and SpaceX’s 540th booster recovery overall, underscoring the maturity of the company’s rapid-reuse architecture.
Payload deployment began just over 54 minutes into the flight, starting with the Toro2 spacecraft, and continued for nearly two hours. SpaceX confirmed that all satellites scheduled to separate from the upper stage were successfully deployed.
A Diverse Manifest for a Global Customer Base
Transporter-15 highlights the core appeal of SpaceX’s rideshare model: affordable, flexible access to space for commercial, civil, and academic customers worldwide. Multiple integrators worked with satellite operators to secure deployment slots and provide custom mechanical interfaces.
A glimpse of the 140 payloads onboard SpaceX’s Transporter-15 mission. Image: SpaceX
Texas-based Seops Space played a major role, deploying 11 spacecraft using its suite of flexible deployment systems. Its manifested satellites included four picosatellites from Alba Orbital; three payloads from Hungarian company C3S; NASA-supported CubeSats Tryad-1, Tryad-2 and 3UCubed-A; and SatRev’s PW-6U.
“Every mission is different, and our strength lies in tailoring integration approaches for payloads that don’t fit a one-size-fits-all model,” said Seops CEO Chad Brinkley. He added that supporting scientific, technological, and commercial innovation from orbit remains central to the company’s mission.
Exolaunch, another major integration provider, oversaw the deployment of 59 satellites. Its manifest featured Taiwan’s T.MicroSat-1, ESA-supported SPiN-2 from Italy’s Space Products and Innovation, and the Veery-0G “Brendan” CubeSat from U.S. weather startup Care Weather. Exolaunch’s broad customer base again underscored the global reach of SpaceX’s rideshare program.
Sitting atop the payload stack—informally known as the “cake topper”—was Formosat-8 (also called Chi Po-lin or FS-8A), an Earth-observation satellite from the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA). Formosat-8 is the first in a planned eight-satellite remote-sensing constellation designed to deliver high-resolution optical imagery.
TASA intends to launch one satellite per year, completing the constellation by 2031. The program is a major step forward for Taiwan’s space capabilities, positioning the island as a growing player in global Earth-observation markets.
Transporter-15 reinforced SpaceX’s commitment to offering predictable, low-cost orbital access at a scale unmatched in today’s launch industry. With dozens of customers, multiple integrators, and more than a hundred spacecraft onboard, the mission showcased how the company’s reusable launch system has reshaped the economics of smallsat deployment.
Add comment
Comments