Fresh off a record-shattering launch cadence in 2025, SpaceX is planning to fly its first rideshare mission of 2026 from Space Launch Complex-4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base on the central California coast. This rideshare will be the first of its kind for SpaceX, and not part of the Transporter or Bandwagon series.
The Twilight rideshare mission, including NASA’s Pandora exoplanet characterization mission, is scheduled to fly on Sunday, Jan. 11 at 5:19 AM PST (13:19 UTC), at the start of a 57 minute window that lasts until 6:16 AM PST (14:16 UTC). A backup window on Monday, Jan. 12, with the same timings, will be available if needed.
Booster 1097, on its fifth flight, will conduct a return to launch site maneuver before touching down at Landing Zone 4, which is next door to the pad where the booster will fly. Prior to Twilight, B1097 flew the Sentinel-6B and three Starlink missions, all from California.
Artist’s impression of the Pandora mission and an exoplanet transiting its host star. (Credit: NASA)
The second stage will fly 40 payloads into a dawn/dusk sun-synchronous orbit that follows the Earth’s terminator, the line that separates day and night. These payloads, including two missions that are related to exoplanet research, will be deployed in orbits within an altitude range of approximately 500 to 600 km above Earth.
The first of these payloads will be deployed one hour and one minute after launch, after the second stage’s one-second-long SES-2 burn, starting at 56 minutes and 55 seconds after liftoff. After 13 payload deployments, the second stage’s two second SES-3 burn is scheduled to start at the one hour and 43 minute mark post-launch.
The SES-3 burn is followed by a coast phase that will end with the SES-4 burn starting at the two hour, 14 second mark after launch. The burn will last for one second and will be followed by the 27 remaining payloads including Pandora. The final deployment of the mission is scheduled for two hours and 32 minutes after liftoff.
Pandora’s solar array fully extended during a test. (Credit: NASA/BCT Solar Array Team)
NASA’s Pandora exoplanet research mission is one of these payloads. Pandora, built by Blue Canyon Technologies of Colorado and funded by NASA’s Astrophysics Pioneers program, is a joint effort between the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The University of Arizona in Tucson is also one of the mission partners.
The Pandora spacecraft will use a 45 cm diameter telescope built by Corning in Keene, New Hampshire, as well as a visible light photometer and a near-infrared spectrograph to observe 20 stars during its one-year primary mission. These stars, a mix of sunlike G stars, orange K dwarfs, and red M-class stars, are known to host exoplanets.
Pandora’s mission will be to observe exoplanet transits in both visible and near-infrared wavelengths to separate out stellar activity like star spots and faculae from the atmospheres of the transiting planets. The satellite will attempt to discover the composition of the planets’ atmospheres, with particular attention to hydrogen, oxygen, and water.
The SPARCS CubeSat in work at Arizona State University. (Credit: Steve Filmer/ASU Media Relations)
The planets involved will range from Earth-sized to Jupiter-sized, and Pandora will be able to observe their parent stars for a much longer duration than the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be able to do. JWST is heavily subscribed and cannot devote all of its time to observing exoplanets and their host stars. However, Pandora and JWST will conduct joint observations of targets.
Although Pandora’s primary mission is scheduled to last one year, the 325 kg spacecraft can perform an extended mission if it is operational. Besides Pandora, the Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS) is also manifested on Twilight as a research mission that will study radiation environments around low-mass stars with exoplanets.
SPARCS is a 6U CubeSat funded by NASA and integrated by Maverick Space Systems, with Arizona State University in Tempe developing the telescope and camera. This satellite will observe low-mass K and M dwarfs in the near and far ultraviolet bands of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Artist’s concept of an exoplanet transiting a host star and its associated brightness dip. (Credit: NASA GSFC)
For these observations, SPARCS is equipped with a 9 cm diameter Ritchey-Chretien telescope along with new high-performance detectors developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The detectors are a technology demonstration for the upcoming ultraviolet-capable Habitable Worlds Observatory.
Like Pandora, SPARCS will observe 20 stars during its one year primary mission, although it can observe targets of opportunity. The stars listed for SPARCS are different than the ones for Pandora, and the ages of the stars SPARCS will observe range from young to old.
SPARCS will be able to observe these stars for much longer periods than observatories like JWST, and also observe them in an entirely different part of the electromagnetic spectrum that Pandora and JWST are not equipped to observe.
SPARCS will characterize the frequency of flares from the low-mass stars it observes; these stars are more active and emit more radiation than our Sun. This added activity may adversely affect planetary habitability, but it is not well understood at the moment.
Artist’s impression of the Exolaunch deployer releasing satellites. (Credit: Exolaunch)
The Twilight mission also features the Exolaunch deployer and 22 associated customer payloads that will be released during the flight. Exolaunch, a company based in Berlin, Germany, has deployed satellites on every Transporter and Bandwagon rideshare missions aboard the Falcon 9 to date, and has deployed 653 satellites across 41 missions in total before Twilight.
Among the 22 Exolaunch customer payloads are nine satellites for Spire Global. Spire’s Hyperspectral Microwave Sounder 16U CubeSat satellite demonstrator will capture detailed internal views of the Earth’s atmosphere, while seven of its satellites are for customers, and one constellation replacement satellite.
Exolaunch is also flying four Connecta satellites for the Turkish company Plan-S Satellite and Space Technologies, which will provide Internet of Things connectivity, as well as three observation satellites for HawkEye 360. In addition, Exolaunch has manifested the Araqys-D1 manufacturing experiment satellite, the Vyoma Flamingo-1 surveillance telescope, and other payloads.
The Flamingo-1 satellite. (Credit: Vyoma)
Kepler Communications is flying ten Aether satellites for its optical data relay network, which will allow for low-latency, high-throughput laser links between nodes in space, in the air, and on the ground. Capella, Umbra, and The Tomorrow Companies have also manifested payloads on Twilight.
Surrey Satellite Technology Limited and Oxford Space Systems in the United Kingdom are flying the CarbSAR demonstrator that will test their wrapped rib antenna (WRA) technology. WRA is designed to allow for synthetic radar observations from a compact satellite, and rideshare flights like Twilight are good opportunities to fly technology demonstrations like this one.
Twilight will be the fourth launch of 2026 for the Falcon 9, as well as the fourth orbital launch of the year worldwide. SpaceX is expected to continue a high launch cadence this year for the Falcon family, including up to four Falcon Heavy launches, while also working to get the Starship system closer to operational service.
(Lead image: A Falcon 9 on the launch pad at Space Launch Complex-4E on Vandenberg Space Force Base. Credit: SpaceX)
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