SpaceX Launches 116 payloads on the 11th Transporter Rideshare Mission
Satellites stacked ahead of launch on the Falcon 9 Transporter-11 rideshare mission. Photo: SpaceX
SpaceX launched 116 payloads to orbit on Friday in the 11th Transporter dedicated smallsat rideshare mission.
A Falcon 9 rocket launched the mission on Aug. 16 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, lifting off at 11:56 a.m. PT. The mission was set to last 2 hours and 36 minutes to deploy all payloads.
For Planet, the mission was the first launch of a hyperspectral satellite, Tanager-1, which launched along with 36 SuperDoves. Tanager-1 is launched in partnership with the Carbon Mapper Coalition and will provide hyperspectral data to both Carbon Mapper and Planet’s regular business. The satellite is designed to monitor methane and carbon dioxide for a variety of use cases.
Exolaunch supported 42 satellites on the mission, a record number of satellites on one mission for the company. It included two satelites for Australia’s ARC Training Centre CUAVA for cubesats and UAVs, CUAVA-2 and Waratah Seed-1. The company’s other customers included seven satellites for Spire Global, Sateliot, and Unseenlabs.
Climate tech company Hydrosat launched its first satellite, VanZyl-1, which will collect high-resolution thermal imagery to monitor water stress, crop health, and climate-related events.
Rideshare integrator SEOPS integrated five payloads on the mission, including two payloads for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Small Spacecraft Technology program; Iperdrone funded by the Italian Space Agency; Train Rapid On Payload (TROOP-F2) hosted payload for NearSpace Launch; and Water Resources in Efficient Networks (WREN-1) from Hungarian space company C3S.
ISISpace manifested a number of customers including a homegrown satellite for South Australia, Kanyini, equipped with dual IoT and imager payloads.
Other customers included integrator Maverick Space Systems; three satellites for Satellogic, two for Tomorrow.io, Capella Space, and the TYCHE imaging satellite for the U.K. military, manifested by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL).
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