Livestream of SpaceX’s launch of 51 tiny satellites during their most recent ride-sharing mission

SpaceX has loaded a Falcon 9 rocket with more than 50 cargo as it gets ready for its newest ride-sharing mission.

According to SpaceX, the Transporter-7 mission will lift off from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Friday at 2:47 a.m. ET (Thursday at 11:47 p.m. PT). On SpaceX’s website or by tuning in to the broadcast below, you may watch the launch live. Ten minutes prior to launch, the live stream is set to start.

Livestream of SpaceX’s launch of 51 tiny

The launch, as the name implies, will be SpaceX’s seventh ride-sharing mission. Smaller payloads (and smaller businesses, for that matter) may access space on these trips at a reasonable price; 110 pounds (50 kilogrammes) can be sent to Sun-synchronous orbit for about $275,000. Normally, makers of tiny satellites and micro satellites would have to piggyback on a flight carrying one or more primary payloads, but SpaceX chose to serve the small satellite industry through its rideshare programme.

In January 2021, SpaceX launched its first Transporter mission from Cape Canaveral in Florida with 143 satellites aboard. On January 3, 2023, Transporter-6, the most recent ride-sharing mission, was launched with 114 satellites.

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There are far fewer satellites aboard Transporter-7, including micro- and nanosatellites headed for a Sun-synchronous orbit. Kenya’s first operational nanosatellite, Taifa-1, is among the mission’s cargo. The Earth-observing satellite is the first in a constellation that Kenya plans to launch into orbit to assist it monitor its habitat and agricultural land.

AstroForge has a further payload on board the Falcon 9. With OrbAstro, a spaceship that will seek to vaporise aboard asteroid-like material and break it down into its constituent components for the first time in zero gravity, the aspirant asteroid mining business intends to test its rock refining powers in deep space.

As part of its Low-Latitude Ionosphere/Thermosphere Enhancements in Density mission, better known as LLITED, NASA is also launching two cubesats to examine Earth’s atmosphere.

There is a greater likelihood that certain projects may fail given the vast number of satellites on board the mission and the cheap cost and experimental character of some of them. So far, the Transporter-6 mission from SpaceX has failed to successfully launch at least one satellite. Launcher, a new space company, said that the Orbiter SN1’s failure was due to a power loss brought on by the satellite’s GPS antenna system. However, the business still intends to launch more of its payload on SpaceX’s rideshare mission, aiming to take the future Transporter-8 into orbit.

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