SpaceX launches another Transporter mission, including dozens of smallsats
SpaceX today successfully completed its fifteenth Transporter mission of smallsats, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The two major customers for this mission were Planet Lab, placing 36 satellites for its imagery constellation, and Exolaunch, which acts as a launch manager for smallsat companies. It placed 58 payloads in orbit for many various companies. Another launch manager company, SEOPS, launched 7 payloads, while the European aerospace company OHB launched 8. Among the other payloads was Varda’s fifth re-usable capsule.
The rocket’s two fairings completed their fourth and fifth flights respectively. The first stage (B1071) completed its 30th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. With this launch this booster become the second SpaceX first stage to achieve at least thirty flights. As the rankings for the most reused launch vehicles below show, SpaceX now has four boosters close to becoming the most reused rockets ever.
39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
31 Falcon 9 booster B1067
30 Falcon 9 booster B1071
29 Falcon 9 booster B1063
28 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
155 SpaceX (a new record)
73 China
15 Rocket Lab
15 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 155 to 124.
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 completed its fifteenth Transporter mission of smallsats, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The two major customers for this mission were Planet Lab, placing 36 satellites for its imagery constellation, and Exolaunch, which acts as a launch manager for smallsat companies. It placed 58 payloads in orbit for many various companies. Another launch manager company, SEOPS, launched 7 payloads, while the European aerospace company OHB launched 8. Among the other payloads was Varda’s fifth re-usable capsule.
The rocket’s two fairings completed their fourth and fifth flights respectively. The first stage (B1071) completed its 30th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. With this launch this booster become the second SpaceX first stage to achieve at least thirty flights. As the rankings for the most reused launch vehicles below show, SpaceX now has four boosters close to becoming the most reused rockets ever.
39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
31 Falcon 9 booster B1067
30 Falcon 9 booster B1071
29 Falcon 9 booster B1063
28 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
155 SpaceX (a new record)
73 China
15 Rocket Lab
15 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 155 to 124.
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
“”Planet Lab…..36 satellites””
“”Exolaunch………58 payloads””
“”SEOPS……..7 payloads””
“”Varda’s fifth re-usable capsule””
“”European aerospace company OHB…….8 payloads””
(Yes, even Europe continues to use the most reliable, REUSABLE launch system ever.)
Can you say “”Capitalism in Space!”
Yeah, Baby!
Does SpaceX put mission marks on it’s components?
These rideshare missions may make Peter Beck unhappy, but darned if they haven’t been a huge boon to the western smallsat industry.
P.S. By the way, I just read that this was the 1000th cumulative satellite launched by a single booster.
She had 8,783 hours of flight time, so no booster is ever going to match that very commonly measured aspect of her working life. So something to look forward to tracking with the first operational Starship missions. I feel like such a trivial commenter about such things that I never worked on
Richard M,
Sir Peter, based on public comments, seems to think SpaceX’s Transporter and Bandwagon missions have been a net plus for Rocket Lab. A number of companies have used Transporter or Bandwagon missions to put up prototype constellation hardware just to get it into space and try it out at a low price, then contract with Rocket Lab for multiple deployments of the constellation birds to bespoke orbits. This is apparently a course of action he actively encourages potential clients to pursue.
Dick: That’s most interesting about Rocket Lab and SpaceX’s multi-payload missions. It indicates again the advantage to the satellite industry having multiple options with different prices. SpaceX is providing the lowest cost option with the least advantages. A good place to test. Rocket Lab then provides a more expensive deluxe service (at a still much lower price than in the past) for customers to use when they are ready.
It suggests there will be plenty of business for the newer rockets expected to come on line next year.
That’s good. Neutron is an R-7 class rocket. I wonder if Europe will lean more heavily towards them and away from Elon.
Hello Jeff,
European customers launch on SpaceX mostly because right now, it has the only spare launch capacity in the Western world — for medium lift, at any rate,
Neutron is a *very* promising launch vehicle, but the difficulty in regards to the issue above is that Neutron is not going to have much spare launch capacity for a few years, either, because it is going to take a while to get its launch cadence up, Peter Beck stated in September that Rocket Lab planned to launch Neutron three times in 2026, and five times in 2027. Now that the first launch is pushed back into 2026, it is probably safe to assume that the rest of this schedule gets pushed back a year, too. (Jacqueline Feldscher, “Rocket Lab’s Neutron Pad Is Open For Launch,” Payload, Sept. 2, 2025) A rocket that is only launching 5 times in 2028 is not going to have much in the way of slots for European payload customers to purchase, alas.
Meanwhile, Falcon 9 is launching about 3-4 times a week.
We have to be patient, I’m afraid. The Europeans will have to be, too.
Hello Dick,
I think this is another case where both things seem to be true. Just two weeks ago he took yet another swipe at SpaceX in his interview with Eric Berger, calling its low pricing on ride share missions “unsustainable.’ And yet it also seems to be true that he has also found a way to leverage SpaceX ride share customers into Electron launches after they mature their products,
Robert Zimmerman,
More choices are always better than fewer. It will be interesting to see if SpaceX garners any availability and/or price competition in the rideshare arena from any of the new launch vehicles now anticipated to be coming on-line in the next year or so. If Stoke, say, can match or better SpaceX’s prices, rideshare could be a nice market for Nova when it reaches operational status. Nova wouldn’t be able to carry anywhere near as many individual sats on a single rideshare launch as can F9, but complete reusability might allow a higher rideshare cadence than SpaceX not too far into Nova’s operational life.
Richard M,
I re-read that Berger interview with Beck. Sir Peter tossed that “unsustainable” word out in a fashion that indicates he may suspect SpaceX of selling rideshare capacity at or below cost, but doesn’t actually know that to be the case. For whatever it may be worth I don’t agree with that take but, then, it has long been my contention – going back a decade or more – that SpaceX’s cost to build and operate F9 is far lower than most imagine.
Agree with your admonition to Jeff that the Euros are not going to find Neutron to be a promptly realistic alternative to F9. But, then, the Euros have only resorted to F9 rides for their government payloads in direst extremis. And, let’s face it, the Euros – even when the private sector is included – don’t actually do all that much launching even on their own rockets. In terms of actual numbers of launches, even if not of total launch mass, various private-sector Euro clients are already making non-trivial use of Electron. At least some of that business might move to Neutron even in its early, low-cadence days. We’ll just have to see.
Hello Dick,
Oh, I agree with all of that.
I think SpaceX *has* aggressively priced its ride share missions prices, and that they *have* done it with a view to crimping the competition in the small-lift market. That’s tough, but that’s business. But it is also true, as we both seem to agree, that SpaceX can afford to do this (and avert any legal antitrust action) because their internal costs for launch are so low now that that they can still make a profit.
All credit to Peter Beck and his team for making good lemonade out of this lemon. SpaceX has effectively got a lot more customers into the orbital game, and some of them eventually get into a position where they can and want to pay for a Rocket Lab cab ride instead of a SpaceX bus ride. Perhaps that’s more $$$ than whatever Rocket Lab has lost to SpaceX in up front pricing on ride shares.
That seems to be true, though even the limited number of EU institutional launches over the past three years has given the powers that be plenty of heart burn!
But Jeff did not specify which Europeans he had in mind. I was thinking of European commercial customers, too. I count a total of five European payloads (institutional and commercial) in 2025 so far, plus a smattering of European customers on ride share launches.
As for the long-term, a lot will depend on how EU states, both at Brussels and in their own governments, regulate all this going forward. Above all they obviously want to keep European payloads on European launchers to that extent that is possible. The problem is the lack of European launchers. If they must use an American rocket, Rocket Lab might well be preferable to SpaceX for some Europeans, but I wonder just how strong that preference is, if the price points are comparable. It’s a moot point until Neutron starts launching with some regularity….
P.S. Anyhow, it’s obvious that SpaceX ride share pricing still ticks Peter Beck off. (Rightly or wrongly.) I think that’s all I was trying to say.
Richard M,
You wrote: “Perhaps that’s more $$$ than whatever Rocket Lab has lost to SpaceX in up front pricing on ride shares.”
I’m convinced that Rocket Lab and the other small launch companies are running pretty much at maximum launch cadence. They have a backlog of satellites to launch, not a dearth. SpaceX is keeping a lot of smallsat companies operating in space that otherwise would not have found access to orbit.
Most of us see Rocket Lab as a launch provider, but they also provide many other services and products, especially to smallsat companies.
The bad guy is not SpaceX but is worldwide governmental overregulation. This is why we lost Virgin Orbit, which was just ramping up its cadence.
Again, it’s not *me* complaining about SpaceX rideshare missions — it’s Peter Beck!