SpaceX launched 11 satellites on its first-ever Bandwagon-1 class rideshare mission from Florida tonight (April 7) and aced an evening rocket landing just minutes later.
A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) tonight at 7:16 p.m. EDT (2316 GMT), kicking off the 11-satellite Bandwagon-1 mission. The spacecraft successfully reached orbit, with SpaceX ending its livestream early at the request of its customer South Korea, which flew its Project 425 SAR synthetic aperture radar satellite on the mission, according to Spaceflight Now.
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“On board this mission are 11 spacecraft including KOREA’s 425Sat, HawkEye 360’s Clusters 8 & 9, Tyvak International’s CENTAURI-6, iQPS’s QPS-SAR-7 TSUKUYOMI-II, Capella Space’s Capella-14, and Tata Advanced Systems Limited’s TSAT-1A,” SpaceX wrote in a mission description.
The Falcon 9’s first stage returned to Earth for a vertical landing about 7.5 minutes after liftoff, if all goes according to plan. It touch downed at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1 facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, which is next door to KSC.
It was the 14th launch and landing for this particular booster, according to the mission description.
While this will be the first mission in SpaceX’s new Bandwagon program, the company is no stranger to rideshare launches.
SpaceX has sent 10 such missions to orbit via its Transporter program, the most recent of which lifted off last month. The first Transporter mission, which launched in January 2021, delivered 143 satellites to orbit, a single-flight record that still stands today.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include the results of SpaceX’s successful Bandwagon-1 launch.
Dr. Sarah Adams is a scientist and science communicator who makes complex topics accessible to all. Her articles explore breakthroughs in various scientific disciplines, from space exploration to cutting-edge research.
