SpaceX launched 11 satellites on its first Bandwagon-1 class ride-sharing mission from Florida tonight (April 7) and successfully landed an evening rocket landing just minutes later.
A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center tonight at 7:16 PM EDT (2316 GMT), kicking off the 11-satellite Bandwagon-1 mission. The spacecraft reached orbit successfully, with SpaceX ending its live broadcast early at the request of its customer South Korea, which sent its Project 425 SAR synthetic aperture radar satellite on the mission, according to Spaceflight Now.
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“There are 11 spacecraft on board this mission, including Korea's 425Sat spacecraft, HawkEye 360's constellations 8 and 9, Tyvak International's CENTAURI-6, iQPS's QPS-SAR-7 TSUKUYOMI-II, and the Capella spacecraft. 14 of Capella Space, and TSAT-1A of Tata Advanced Systems Limited.” SpaceX wrote in a Task description.
The Falcon 9 rocket's first stage returned to Earth for a vertical landing about 7.5 minutes after liftoff, if all went according to plan. The vehicle landed at SpaceX's Landing Zone 1 facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, adjacent to KSC.
This was the 14th launch and landing of 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 ride-sharing launches.
SpaceX has sent 10 such missions into orbit through its Transporter program, the most recent of which launched last month. The first Transporter mission, which launched in January 2021, delivered 143 satellites into orbit, a record for a single flight that still stands today.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to include the results of SpaceX's successful launch of Bandwagon-1.