SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket sent dozens of satellites into orbit today with a launch that featured an unusual on-the-ground touchdown for its first-stage booster.
Eighty-eight spacecraft were packed aboard the two-stage rocket, which took off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida heading for a pole-to-pole orbit. That sun-synchronous orbit is typically preferred for Earth observation satellites, of which there were plenty.
Two of the spacecraft were Sherpa orbital transfer vehicles built by Seattle-based Spaceflight Inc. One of the Sherpas used a electric propulsion system to maneuver in space and deploy satellites into different orbits. The other was a free-flier.
The two Sherpa orbital tugs carried 36 payloads between them, including six microsatellites, 29 CubeSats and one hosted payload. Spaceflight’s customers for this mission come from 14 organizations in seven countries.
One of the satellites was Orbit Fab’s Tanker-001 satellite, which was designed to test in-space refueling procedures. A startup based in Kent, Wash., Starfish Space, played a role in developing the guidance software for Tanker-001.
Spaceflight’s two Sherpa tugs have separated from the SpaceX payload stack.
Now flying free of the Falcon 9, the Sherpa vehicles will deploy 35 small satellites from seven countries.https://t.co/m6uvzPh9qp pic.twitter.com/QnKUo8flJQ
— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) June 30, 2021
This was SpaceX’s second dedicated satellite rideshare mission, known as Transporter-1. In addition to the Sherpas and their payloads, the Falcon 9 carried dozens of other spacecraft — including Loft Orbital’s YAM-3 satellite, a multipurpose spacecraft that was built by LeoStella at its factory in Tukwila, Wash.
In a sense, SpaceX was a customer as well as a launch provider for today’s Transporter-2 mission — thanks to three satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink broadband data constellation that were aboard the Falcon 9. The Starlink spacecraft were built at SpaceX’s satellite development and manufacturing center in Redmond, Wash.
This week’s liftoff from the Florida launch pad had to be delayed on Tuesday when a helicopter strayed into a restricted zone around the Falcon 9 just before launch time. Weather posed a challenge today, but after a couple of launch-time resets, the rocket rose into cloudy skies at 3:31 p.m. ET (12:31 p.m. PT).
Several minutes after launch, the Falcon 9’s second stage separated from the first-stage booster and continued its trek to orbit. Because of the mission’s designated orbit, the booster was programmed to fly itself back to SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1, not far from the Florida launch pad, rather than heading for an at-sea touchdown.
Twin sonic booms heralded the descent of the booster, which made a bull’s-eye landing as SpaceX employees could be heard cheering wildly on the webcast. “That was as smooth as I’ve seen it. … This booster has landed for the eighth time,” launch commentator Andy Tran said.
It was the first on-the-ground landing for SpaceX since last December. SpaceX was also aiming for an at-sea recovery of the Falcon 9’s fairing, or nose cone.
The Falcon 9’s second stage deployed its dozens of payloads over the course of an hour and a half following launch, ending with the Sherpas and the Starlink satellites.
This report was first published at 1:08 p.m. PT and updated with payload deployment.
