The Pentagon's Space Development Agency (SDA) had four satellites on Transporter-2.
SpaceX flew three of its own Starlink satellites on the launch, which will join 10 Starlink satellites launched into polar orbit on Transporter-1. Other commercial customers included Astrocast and Swarm, which are each developing internet-of-things constellations, and Satellogic, which has a multi-launch agreement with SpaceX for launching its imaging satellites. HawkEye 360 and Kleos, two companies deploying constellations to perform radio-frequency tracking, each had satellites on this mission, as did PlanetiQ and Spire Global, which collect GPS radio occultation data for use in weather forecasting. The Transporter-2 payload manifest featured synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites from three competing companies: Capella, ICEYE and Umbra. It has attracted significant interest from both companies and government agencies. SpaceX established its smallsat rideshare program nearly two years ago, offering low-cost launches on dedicated Falcon 9 missions like Transporter-2 as well as on launches of its Starlink satellites. The company did not disclose specific payload mass figures for either mission. The earlier flight carried 143 satellites, but SpaceX said the total payload mass for Transporter-2 was greater than that of Transporter-1. The mission, named Transporter-2 by SpaceX, was the company's second dedicated smallsat rideshare mission, after the Transporter-1 mission in January. The satellites, from a variety of government and commercial customers, were released over half an hour. Figure 1: A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifts off June 30 on the Transporter-2 rideshare mission, with 88 satellites on board (image credit: SpaceX webcast)ĭeployment of the payload of 88 satellites started nearly 58 minutes after liftoff, once the upper stage performed a second burn of its engine to place it into a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of nearly 550 kilometers.
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