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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
“””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.
Ronaldus Magnus – A lot of companies have started but very few have thrived. There is more to launch than the launcher.
George C – I’ve been lucky enough to get three out of four on orbit. That is the easy part. Keeping the satellite alive after that is not trivial. Very few kickstarters have made it but that was earlier on.
Dick Eagleson – The cost is $6500 per kilo but that doesn’t include the additional hardware to get the satellite off the payload adapter. If you do it yourself (justifying the risks to SpaceX btw) you are looking at close to $25k per kilo. If you go through an aggregator, expect to pay anywhere from $50k to $100k per kilo for you launch. These costs do not include licensing which can add another $20k per kilo. Space is much cheaper than before but it isn’t as cheap as it has been made out to be.
Joe,
Duly noted. I bow to your actual experience. Thanks for chiming in.
Joe,
If it costs that much for a SpaceX Transporter mission, then the small launch vehicles coming online now are not at the price disadvantage that many of us thought.
SpaceX has a lot of room to drop these prices. But why should they until a price competitor actually forces them to do so?
Edward,
That would appear to, at least sometimes, be the case, though still not for the smallest payloads. Even so, the Rocket Lab Electron has been used to send multiple payloads to orbit on a single launch on more than one occasion too.
I could see small launchers perhaps using a transporter model–different customers schmoozing together.
Just today I saw “Single-molecule magnet could lead to stamp sized hard drives.”
If that is the case, half the cubesats could be a lead box and it *still* be a bargain, especially if an inner free floating sat is within an outer shell with more conventional tech.