SpaceX launching 11-satellite Bandwagon rideshare mission tonight (April 7)

SpaceX launched 11 satellites on its first-ever Bandwagon-1 class rideshare mission from Florida tonight (April 7) and aced an evening rocket landing honest minutes later.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Set Center (KSC) tonight at 7:16 p.m. EDT (2316 GMT), kicking off the 11-satellite Bandwagon-1 mission. The spacecraft efficiently reached orbit, with SpaceX ending its livestream early at the quiz of its buyer South Korea, which flew its Project 425 SAR artificial aperture radar satellite on the mission, in step with Spaceflight Now.

Linked: Starlink satellite relate: Be taught how to sight and be conscious it in the evening sky

“On board this mission are 11 spacecraft including KOREA’s 425Sat, HawkEye 360’s Clusters 8 & 9, Tyvak World’s CENTAURI-6, iQPS’s QPS-SAR-7 TSUKUYOMI-II, Capella Set’s Capella-14, and Tata Evolved Systems Miniature’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 in step with space. It contact downed at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1 facility at Cape Canaveral Set Power Stationwhich is round the corner to KSC.

It became the 14th birth and landing for this explicit booster, in step with the mission description.

While it could maybe be the principle mission in SpaceX’s fresh Bandwagon program, the company isn’t any stranger to rideshare launches.

SpaceX has despatched 10 such missions to orbit by the spend of its Transporter program, the most most up-to-date of which lifted off final month. The foremost Transporter mission, which launched in January 2021, delivered 143 satellites to orbita single-flight document that also stands as of late.

Editor’s show: This memoir has been updated to consist of the outcomes of SpaceX’s profitable Bandwagon-1 birth.

Michael Wall is a Senior Set Author withSet.comand joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and protection force house, but has been identified to dabble in the house art work beat. His guide about the see for alien lifestyles, “Out There,” became published on Nov. 13, 2018. Sooner than changing right into a science creator, Michael labored as a herpetologist and natural world biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To hunt down out what his most up-to-date mission is, you could maybe be conscious Michael on Twitter.