SpaceX completes another smallsat Transporter launch, launching 70 payloads
SpaceX today successfully placed 70 payloads, including 66 separate deployments, into orbit as part of its Transporter program for smallsats, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its 26th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean. It also completed this flight only 22 days after its last flight. As of posting the deployment of these payloads and satellites was on going.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
78 SpaceX
35 China
8 Rocket Lab
7 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 78 to 58.
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SpaceX today successfully placed 70 payloads, including 66 separate deployments, into orbit as part of its Transporter program for smallsats, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its 26th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean. It also completed this flight only 22 days after its last flight. As of posting the deployment of these payloads and satellites was on going.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
78 SpaceX
35 China
8 Rocket Lab
7 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 78 to 58.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
“””The first stage completed its 26th flight”””
More Capitalism In Space!
Considering it is the TWENTY SIXTH launch, just what is the cost/price per smallsat? How many companies have been able to start and thrive due to lower costs?
Imagine waiting for NASA, SLS, etc.
On kickstarter I foumd several projects about building satellites, but did not find anything about a group that actually got one in orbit.
Ronaldus Magnus,
Current quoted price for SpaceX rideshares is $6,500/kg. with a minimum order of 50 kg. if dealing directly with SpaceX. If one has a payload that is appreciably lighter than 50 kg., there are a number of aggregators who buy rideshare mission capacity wholesale and re-sell it in smaller chunks at a markup. I would guess prices to launch, say, a 1 kg. cubesat would start at $10,000 and could well be higher.