SpaceX simply launched one other huge fleet of satellites to the ultimate frontier.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 70 payloads for a wide range of prospects lifted off from California’s Vandenberg House Power Base immediately (June 23) at 5:25 p.m. EDT (2125 GMT; 2:25 p.m. native California time), on a rideshare mission referred to as Transporter 14.
Transporter 14 is lofting microsats, cubesats and reentry capsules, together with one which’s carrying cremated stays and human DNA on a memorial mission.
The Falcon 9’s first stage got here again to Earth immediately as deliberate, touching down on the SpaceX drone ship “Of Course I Nonetheless Love You” within the Pacific Ocean about 8.5 minutes after liftoff.
It was the twenty sixth launch and touchdown for this explicit booster, in response to a SpaceX mission description. That is near the corporate’s reusability file, which at present stands at 28 flights.
The rocket’s higher stage, in the meantime, continued powering its method to low Earth orbit, the place it has a variety of work to do: It can deploy the menagerie of payloads over a virtually two-hour span that begins roughly 54 minutes after launch.
These payloads embrace non-public Earth-observing satellites, similar to Capella House’s Capella-17 artificial aperture radar craft, and Starfish House’s Otter Pup 2, which can try to carry out the first-ever industrial docking in LEO later this 12 months.
Transporter 14 can be carrying the fourth reentry capsule for California firm Varda House, which is working to fabricate prescribed drugs and different items in area and return them to Earth.
Additionally aboard the Falcon 9 higher stage is The Exploration Firm’s new Nyx reusable spacecraft, which is flying a memorial mission in cooperation with the space-burial firm Celestis.
Nyx — the ultimate payload to be deployed immediately — is carrying cremated stays and/or DNA from about 150 folks. If all goes to plan, the spacecraft will circle Earth two or 3 times after which be recovered.
As its title suggests, Transporter 14 is the 14th mission in SpaceX’s rideshare sequence. The primary of those, Transporter 1 again in January 2021, set a single-launch file, sending a whopping 143 satellites to orbit.
The corporate additionally operates one other rideshare program known as Bandwagon, which has three missions beneath its belt up to now.
