SpaceX’s Falcon 9 set to launch 140 payloads on Transporter-15

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SpaceX is set to launch 140 commercial payloads to Sun-synchronous orbit on its sixth rideshare mission of the year, Transporter-15. The Falcon 9 will launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base’s Space Launch Complex 4-E (SLC-4E) no earlier than Nov. 26 at 10:19 PST (18:19 UTC).

The mission’s first stage, booster B1071 will be flying its 30th mission to date; this will be the second booster to achieve this milestone. SpaceX’s droneship Of Course I Still Love You will recover the booster in the Pacific Ocean.

The company will begin deploying satellites at T+54:39 minutes into the mission, completing the process at T+02:43:00 hours after launch. The second stage will perform a total of five burns to deliver all payloads to their correct inclinations.

Exolaunch

The German aerospace company Exolaunch will be hosting 59 payloads, marking the largest number of spacecraft it has launched on a rideshare mission to date. The company has flown satellites on every SpaceX Transporter mission so far, with a total of 595 satellites being deployed across 39 missions and multiple launch vehicles, including Rocket Lab’s Electron. Exolaunch has over 30 commercial and government customers from 16 countries on this mission, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Spain.

Key payloads for the company are five ICEYE synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites. These Earth observation satellites can see through all conditions and at any time of day. These spacecraft serve many purposes, including environmental monitoring.

A European Space Agency payload manifested by Exolaunch is HYDROGNNS-1. Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd built these twin microsatellites. Once in orbit, the two spacecraft will orbit Earth approximately 180 degrees apart. Their primary focus is on Essential Climate Variables such as soil moisture and above-ground biomass, which are crucial for understanding the Earth’s water cycle.

Artists render of HYDROGNNS-1 (Credit:ESA)

The Taiwanese Space Agency (TASA) is launching three homegrown cubesats developed with commercial partners. TASA hopes this will help grow Taiwan’s commercial space industry. Exolaunch is manifesting these payloads on behalf of the agency. The three satellites are all built on an 8U CubeSat bus, based on a standard 10 x 10 x 10 cm unit, called U.

One of the three payloads is Black Kite-1, developed by Rapidtek Technologies Inc. This Internet of Things (IoT) remote-sensing satellite will enable communication in areas that are not usually covered. Another TASA payload is Bellbird-1, developed by Tron Future Tech. This Ka-band craft will test high-speed communications and handover technology, enabling communication to pass from satellites to ground stations or to other satellites in orbit. TORO-8U-1, developed by Pyras Technology Inc., will carry out Ocean Color Remote Sensing to study general ocean health.

While Exolaunch provides launch services for these three TASA payloads, the agency is also manifesting its own payload: Formosat-8A. There are eight Earth observation satellites planned for the Formosat constellation. The payload for this mission is one of six planned satellites equipped with high-resolution optical remote sensing at one-meter resolution. The other two spacecraft will be ultra-high-resolution optical remote sensing with a resolution of less than one meter.

FORMOSAT-8A during testing (Credit:TASA)

Planet Labs

Planet Labs, an Earth imaging company based in San Francisco, will launch 36 SuperDove satellites (Flock 4H) on the Transporter-15 mission. Its SuperDove constellation provides medium-resolution imagery. The 3U satellites, each massing five kilograms, can capture three meters per pixel, ideal for daily global land monitoring.

In addition, the company is launching two spacecraft for its Pelican constellation. These much larger payloads weigh 200 kg each and are capable of high-resolution imagery at 30 cm per pixel.

Impulse Space

Impulse Space will launch its Leo-Express 3 mission on Transporter-15. Leo-Express 3 will utilize an upgraded version of the company’s Mira space tug, featuring enhanced propulsion and deployable, gimbaled solar arrays.

Mira will host multiple payloads, including Heo Space’s Holmes MK2 NEI Camera. This will be used for capturing high-resolution images of other spacecraft. Another payload is from Samara Aerospace, which will demonstrate Samara’s Multifunctional Structures for Attitude Control (MSAC), which allows a spacecraft to use actuators to control its orientation and steer itself.

Impulse Space’s Mira tug during pre-launch processing. (Credit:Impulse Space)

Varda

Varda Space Industries, a California-based space research firm, will launch Winnebago-5 (W-5), a reentry capsule designed to process pharmaceuticals in microgravity. During re-entry, the capsule will be protected by its heat shield made from C-PICA, a thermal protection system developed by NASA. A variant of C-PICA, PICA-X, is used on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsules. The capsule will reenter Earth’s atmosphere at 28,000 km per hour (Mach 25).

SEOPS

SEOPS, a launch integrator, is manifesting 10 payloads on Transporter-15. These include the 16U Mauve spectrograph, developed by U.K. startup Blue Skies Space.

Mauve will be the first commercial spectrograph in orbit and has a 13 cm telescope. Blue Skies plans to have a multi-year science program with thousands of hours each year studying stars in our galaxy and the habitability of exoplanets around them.

Blue Skies Mauve satellite in the clean room (Credit:Blue Skies Space)

Another payload manifested by SEOPS is 3UCubed-A. This is a student-led cubesat project from the University of New Hampshire, Sonoma State University, and Howard University. NASA’s Heliophysics Division funds the project and aims to measure solar winds and particle precipitation in Earth’s thermosphere.

Two more international spacecraft will be flying with SEOPS. These are Hunity from Hungary’s BME, which will host instruments from university and high school students. Two additional satellites, Sari-1 and Sari-2, developed by the Saudi Space Agency, will carry imaging and real-time telemetry equipment.

Transporter-15 will be SpaceX’s 157th mission of the year, and its sixth total Transporter/Bandwagon rideshare mission in 2025. These missions are crucial to small satellite companies and enable cheaper access to orbit. A dedicated SpaceX Falcon 9 launch costs approximately $69.85 million; however, with rideshare missions, companies can launch up to 50 kg to orbit for just $325,000.

(Lead image: Falcon 9 atop SLC-4E ahead of the Transporter-15 mission. Credit: SpaceX)

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