SpaceX Transporter-7 to launch 51 payloads, return booster to LZ

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SpaceX is preparing to launch for the 24th time this year with the Transporter-7 rideshare mission from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base. The mission is due to lift off at 11:47 PM PDT on Thursday, April 13, 2023 (06:47 UTC on April 14).

This is a three-day delay from the original schedule, in order to allow time for additional pre-launch checkouts as well as improved weather conditions.

The launch vehicle’s booster will return to SpaceX’s landing zone four (LZ-4) approximately seven and a half minutes after launch. The payload fairing will be recovered from the ocean downrange by ship NRC Quest. This will be the first Transporter mission to launch from Vandenberg, as well as the first Transporter mission to launch at night.

Falcon 9 booster B1063 will be making its tenth flight, the eighth booster to reach double digits. It previously lofted Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, DART, and seven Starlink missions. The second stage of the vehicle is expected to feature a new variant of the nozzle extension on the MVac engine. This new nozzle extension is optimized for cost and manufacturability at the expense of some efficiency and will be used on missions where Falcon 9’s full performance is not needed.

The second stage will perform five burns throughout this mission. The first two will bring the vehicle to a nearly circular orbit around 500 km in altitude to deploy most of the payloads starting about an hour after launch. Two more burns will raise the orbit to around 680 km circular for the deployment of IMECE, two and a half hours after liftoff. One more will deorbit the second stage.

The SpaceX launch to follow Transporter-7 is unclear as SpaceX prepares to launch three different vehicles next week. The first test flight of the new Starship launch vehicle could occur as soon as April 17 from the Starbase facility in Texas, a Falcon Heavy is preparing to launch the first Viasat-3 satellite and some co-passengers as soon as April 18 from LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center, and a Falcon 9 is expected to launch another set of Starlink satellites from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on April 19.

Mission Overview

This is the seventh dedicated rideshare mission organized by SpaceX and is carrying 51 payloads into orbit, some of which will be deployed later from the two space tugs that are on the mission. The payloads range in size from picosatellites of less than a kilogram that are only a few centimeters on a side to a Turkish earth observation satellite massing around 800 kg. The majority of the payloads will be deployed to a Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) of approximately 500-kilometer altitude and 97.4-degree inclination.

The Transporter missions are intended to provide a consistent cadence of rideshare opportunities to popular orbits such as SSO. There are two more Transporter missions scheduled for 2023, with the next as soon as June and the following no earlier than (NET) October.

Exolaunch CubeSat dispensers for the Transporter 7 mission. (Credit: Exolaunch)

While some Transporter customers deal directly with SpaceX to get a ride for their spacecraft, most of the payloads are handled by launch integrators who buy ports on the payload stack and then assemble multiple customers into that space, launching either directly from the launch vehicle’s second stage or on board a separable deployer or space tug that will release payloads at a later time, possibly after adjusting the orbit.

Transporter-7 Payloads

On this flight, the launch integrators with ports on the payload stack include Exolaunch, handling 16 CubeSats and five microsatellites on the current mission. ISIL placed several of their customer CubeSats with Exolaunch and Momentus. SEOPS is handling three microsatellites. Maverick Space Systems is handling two CubeSats and three microsatellites.

Transporter 7 payload stack. (Credit: SpaceX)

D-Orbit has the ION-SCV-010 tug carrying several CubeSats, including EPICHyper-1, VCUB1, and Kepler 20 & 21. Alba Orbital has its Cluster 7 aboard ION with several PocketQubes, including ROM-2 and MRC-100.

Momentus has the Vigoride-VR6 tug carrying several CubeSats: LLITED A/B, REVELA, DISCO-1, VIREO, and IRIS-C. Also aboard are a new CubeSat deployer for Italy’s ARCA and a demonstration of the new roll-out Tape Spring Solar Array (TASSA) from Momentus.

The largest payload on Transporter-7 is the Earth observation (EO) satellite IMECE, the highest resolution imaging satellite designed and built in Turkey with 0.99 m panchromatic and 5 m multispectral capabilities. Designed by TÜBİTAK Space Technologies Research Institute (TÜBİTAK UZAY), it is one of several Turkish satellites on board. TÜBİTAK UZAY also has SSS-2B, a 3U CubeSat technology demonstrator. Another 3U CubeSat is KILICSAT from GUMUSH Aerospace and the University of Turkish Aeronautical Association, with an AIS receiver and amateur radio beacon. Plan S has its Connecta T2.1, a 6U CubeSat that includes an Internet of Things (IoT) payload and a Caiman multispectral camera from Dragonfly Aerospace.

The volume of CubeSats is usually given in units — “U” — of 10 by 10 by 10 centimeters. For example, a 6U CubeSat would measure 10 by 20 by 30 centimeters. The volume of PocketQubes is usually given in P units of 5 by 5 by 5 centimeters, so a 2P PocketQube is 5 by 5 by 10 centimeters.

Orbital Sidekick has the first two spacecraft in its constellation of high-resolution hyperspectral imaging satellites, GHOSt 1 & 2, with 8 m resolution and 500 spectral bands. The imaging technology has been tested in orbit with earlier payloads on the International Space Station and the smaller Aurora satellite that was launched on Transporter-2. The Astro Digital satellite bus and deployment with a Maverick dual satellite adapter were also demonstrated on Transporter-2 with SEAKR’s Mandrake 2 satellites.

 

Render of two GHOSt satellites on their launch adapter. (Credit: Orbital Sidekick)

The GHOSt microsatellites are approximately 90 kg each. Moving to a larger bus than the earlier Aurora satellite enabled using larger telescopes, as well as giving more power and higher throughput Ka-band radios. Onboard image processing using Nvidia hardware enables them to pick out data of interest and reduce the overall amount of data downloaded.

Currently, Orbital Sidekick’s commercial business is largely in the energy industry, where the company supports seven of the top 10 pipeline operators in North America with services such as pipeline leak detection. Orbital Sidekick also has contracts with the NRO and other government customers. Transporter-8 and Transporter-9 will each carry another pair of GHOSt satellites. This will fill Orbital Sidekick’s current authorization for six satellites, which the company intends to expand to 14.

Argentinian firm Satellogic will increase its constellation to 34 active satellites with four more on this flight.  NewSat (or ÑuSat) 36-39 have 1 m resolution multispectral imaging and 25 m hyperspectral imaging.

AAC Clyde Space is launching EPICHyper-1 for customer Wyvern Space, a 6U spacecraft with a hyperspectral imager. FACSAT-2, a 6U satellite for the Colombian Air Force, has a 5 m imaging payload and a spectrometer for detecting greenhouse gases. Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has the 6U DEWASAT-2 with a 4.7 m multispectral imager. Kenya’s Taifa-1 is a 3U satellite developed by SayariLabs in collaboration with Endurosat that has a hyperspectral payload. Italy’s Arca Dynamics has the 3U Revela satellite with an EO payload to demonstrate image processing algorithms. VCUB1 from Brazil’s Visiona Tecnologia Espacial is a 6U spacecraft with a 3.5 m multispectral camera.

There is only one synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite on this Transporter mission. Umbra is expanding its constellation with Umbra-6, massing approximately 70 kg. Umbra now has an open data program monitoring several locations around the world.

Readying the HAWK-7 satellites for launch. (Credit: Hawkeye 360)

Two operators of radio frequency (RF) detection/geolocation services continue to expand their constellations. Hawkeye 360 has the HAWK-7A/B/C trio of 30 kg microsatellites. Unseen Labs has BRO-9, a 6U CubeSat. CACI International also has a demonstration microsatellite that has an RF detection payload as well as a positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) payload.

GHGSat has three more of its 15 kg microsatellites with methane sensors for greenhouse gas emissions detection, GHGSat-C6/7/8.

Norway’s NORSAT-TD, a 35 kg microsatellite, has a variety of payloads including an Automatic Identification System (AIS) for monitoring marine traffic, a VHF Data Exchange System (VDES) for two-way messaging with marine vessels, a laser communications payload, and a laser reflector to allow tracking of the satellite.

Spire has three LEMURs on board. LEMUR 2 ONREFLECTION is a 6U spacecraft built for a customer. LEMUR 2 SPACEGUS is also known as Adler-2, a 6U spacecraft with several instruments for assessing the debris environment. LEMUR 2 ROMEO-N-LEO is a 3U satellite for Spire’s own constellation, which has GPS radio occultation (RO) functionality for gathering weather data, AIS for tracking maritime traffic, and Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) for tracking aircraft.

Kepler Communications is launching a pair of 6U satellites, Kepler 20 & 21, with Ku-band communications and data store-and-forward capabilities. These will expand Kepler’s current constellation and test payload technology for the next-generation satellites, which are planned to begin launching in the fall with two Pathfinder satellites. Kepler just announced a $92 million Series C funding round that will allow the build-out of its optical relay network next year.

Sateliot-0/Platform-3 is a 6U satellite built by Endurosat for Sateliot with a 5G IoT payload. Tomorrow.io has the 85 kg Tomorrow-R1 satellite with a weather radar payload.

Tomorrow-R1. (Credit: Tomorrow.io)

Asteroid mining startup AstroForge has a 6U CubeSat, Brokkr-1, that will attempt to demonstrate vaporizing a sample of asteroid-like material and separating metals.

LLITED-A/B (Low-Latitude Ionosphere/Thermosphere Enhancements in Density), a pair of 1.5U CubeSats from NASA, will have their orbit lowered to 495 km by the Vigoride tug before beginning their mission to provide measurements of the ionosphere and thermosphere to study the Equatorial Ionization Anomaly (EIA) and Equatorial Temperature and Wind Anomaly (ETWA).

CIRBE, a 3U CubeSat from the University of Colorado Boulder, will take measurements for the study of radiation belt dynamics.

Stanford Student Space Initiative (Sapling) and Cal Poly Pomona Bronco Space (Yearling) are back with new technology demonstrator CubeSats after having their previous spacecraft on the Transporter-6 flight get trapped in their deployers when the tug they were riding had a power failure. INSPIRE-Sat 7 is a French university project from LATMOS that includes an amateur radio payload. There is a 1U student satellite from Denmark, DISCO-1.

RoseyCubesat-1 from Orbital Solutions Monaco is a 1U satellite assembled by high school students. International Computing High School of Bucharest in Romania has the 1P satellite ROM-2 with an amateur radio payload and a two-megapixel camera.

National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Taiwan has the 3U IRIS-C to verify the performance of a star tracker. MRC-100 from the Technical University of Budapest in Hungary, part of its “SMOG” series, is a 3P satellite for monitoring “electromagnetic pollution” generated by human activity on Earth.

Hungarian 3U satellite VIREO is a technology demonstrator from C3S and AImotive.

Celestis has its Excelsior memorial spaceflight mission on board.

Details of some payloads have not been announced at the time of publication. The “Its About Time” payload on the SpaceX manifest may be the CACI satellite. The “LS2F” payload is unknown, but the name would suggest it is for Lacuna Space. D-Orbit has not yet released information on the company’s payloads.

Falcon 9 returns for landing at LZ-1 during the Transporter-6 mission in January 2023. (Credit: Stephen Marr for NSF)

Transporter-6 Payloads Status

Of the 114 objects that SpaceX stated would be launching on January’s Transporter-6 mission, there are currently 99 shown in space-track.org’s satellite catalog. Space-track has names associated with 93 of them, and Celestrak has names for two more. Two of the unidentified objects would be Launcher’s Orbiter SN1 and Epic Aerospace’s LEO 1, with a third most likely being Endurosat’s Platform-2 CubeSat.

An FCC filing from the owner of RROCI says: “The first RROCI satellite launched on Transporter-6 on Jan. 3, 2023, but it was never deployed from the launch vehicle, so RROCI is not on orbit. It met its demise when the launch vehicle returned to earth.” A new satellite, RROCI-2, is scheduled to launch on Transporter-10 early next year.

Six payloads were stranded on Orbiter SN1 when it lost power. Four CubeSats for Astrocast seem to still be aboard an ION tug, and ZEUS-1 should still be aboard Vigoride-5.

This leaves several candidates for the last unidentified object in orbit, including Ukraine’s Polyitan HP-30, OrbAstro’s Guardian-Alpha, and ICEYE’s X-22. It seems at least two of those were not deployed from the launch vehicle.

(Lead image: Falcon 9 on the launch pad at SLC-4E ahead of the Tranche 0 Flight 1 mission. Credit: Jack Beyer for NSF)

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