SpaceX to set record for most satellites launched on a single mission

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  SpaceX’s Transporter-1 mission is set to liftoff Saturday, January 23rd at 9:40 a.m. EST. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann ]

As early as Saturday morning, SpaceX will launch the first dedicated mission of a rideshare program it announced in late 2019. As part of this plan, the company sought to bundle dozens of small satellites together for regular launches on its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.

There seems to have been a fair amount of interest in the program, which offered a very low price of $15,000 per kilogram delivered to a Sun-synchronous orbit. For its first “Transporter-1 mission,” SpaceX said it will launch 133 commercial and government spacecraft as well as 10 of its own Starlink satellites. SpaceX had to obtain permission to deploy these Starlink satellites into a polar orbit.

With this launch of 143 total satellites, SpaceX will surpass the previous recordholder for most satellites launched in a single mission, set by an Indian launch vehicle in 2017. In February of that year, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle successfully delivered 104 satellites into a handful of different Sun-synchronous orbits.