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File: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is vertical at Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base ahead of the launch of the Starlink 9-10 mission on Nov. 8, 2024. Image: SpaceX<\/p>\nFile: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is vertical at Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base ahead of the launch of the Starlink 9-10 mission on Nov. 8, 2024. Image: SpaceX<\/p>\n
SpaceX will debut a new class of rideshare mission on Sunday with the launch of its first Twilight flight. The mission is described by the company as flying to a \u201cdawn-dusk Sun-synchronous orbit\u201d after departing from Vandenberg Space Force Base.<\/p>\n
As of Saturday afternoon, SpaceX hasn\u2019t announced the total number of payloads flying onboard, but it did list 40 deployment events on its launch timeline. Spacecraft will be jettisoned from the Falcon 9 rocket\u2019s upper stage starting roughly an hour after liftoff and concluding more than 2.5 hours into the mission.<\/p>\n
Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East is scheduled for 5:20 a.m. PST (8:20 a.m. EST \/ 1320 UTC). The rocket will fly on a southerly trajectory after takeoff.<\/p>\n
Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about 30 minutes prior to liftoff.<\/p>\n
\ufeff<\/p>\n
It will be the fifth flight for one of SpaceX\u2019s newer Falcon boosters, designated 1097. It previously launched three batches of Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites and the Sentinel-6B spacecraft.<\/p>\n
Roughly 7.5 minutes after liftoff, B1097 will touchdown at Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4), adjacent to the launch pad. If successful, this will be the 32nd landing at this site and the 557th booster landing for SpaceX to date.<\/p>\n
Pandora, BlackCat, and SPARCS<\/p>\n
The Twilight mission will carry a trio of NASA spacecraft, including a spacecraft designed to study exoplanets called Pandora.<\/p>\n
This mission is spearheaded by NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. It uses a 17-inch-wide (45 cm) telescope jointly developed by Corning Incorporated and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to observe the atmosphere of exoplanets as they pass in front of their respective stars.<\/p>\n
Observations will be taken in both visible and infrared light. NASA said Pandora will look at each planet and its start 10 times \u201cwith each observation lasting a total of 24 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
\ufeff<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Pandora mission is a bold new chapter in exoplanet exploration,\u201d said Daniel Apai, an astronomy and planetary science professor at the University of Arizona<\/a> in Tucson where the mission\u2019s operations center resides. \u201cIt is the first space telescope built specifically to study, in detail, starlight filtered through exoplanet atmospheres. Pandora\u2019s data\u00a0will help scientists interpret observations from past and current missions like NASA\u2019s Kepler<\/a> and Webb space telescopes. And it will guide future projects in their search for habitable worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n The observatory was one of four astrophysics missions tapped for further development under NASA\u2019s new Pioneers program and will study 20 stars and 39 exoplanets over a five-year timeline. The Pandora mission has a budget cap of $20 million, according to a statement<\/a> from NASA in 2021.<\/p>\n The two other NASA-backed payloads, BlackCat and SPARCS (Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat) come from the agency\u2019s CubeSat Launch Initiative. Each CubeSat measures 11.8 by 7.8 by 3.9 inches (30 by 20 by 10 cm).<\/p>\n BlackCAT is set to launch!<\/p>\n This @NASA<\/a>-funded mission led by @PSUScience<\/a>, with contributions from @LosAlamosNatLab<\/a>, will launch at 13:19 UTC this Sunday to hunt for some of the brightest, furthest, and oldest explosions in our Universe:<\/p>\n BlackCAT (the Black Hole Coded Aperture\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/2XZvhDi6CJ<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Kongsberg NanoAvionics (@NanoAvionics) January 9, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n BlackCat is funded through NASA\u2019s Astrophysics Research and Analysis Program to the tune of $5.8 million for its five-year mission. It is a wide-field x-ray telescope built and managed by Pennsylvania State University with support from Los Alamos National Laboratory and built on a satellite bus from Kongsberg NanoAvionics US.<\/p>\n Per a September 2021 press release<\/a> from Penn State, BlackCat was expected to launch in March 2024. The telescope will be used \u201cto study powerful cosmic explosions like gamma-ray bursts, particularly those from the early universe, and other fleeting cosmic events,\u201d NASA said.<\/p>\n Meanwhile SPARCS is designed to study solar flares and sunspots of stars with low mass in the far- and near-ultraviolet. The data gathered from these observations will help determine the likelihood that these starts can support life in nearby exoplanets.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will be sensitive for the first time to the rarest and the strongest of these stellar flares,\u201d says\u00a0ASU\u00a0Professor Evgenya Shkolnik<\/a>, the mission\u2019s principal investigator. \u201cAnd once we understand how strong flares can get, which we really don\u2019t know, we will finally understand how much energy is hitting a potentially habitable planet. Then we can use those data to calculate what that impact really is.\u201d<\/p>\n In a January 2020 Astrophysics presentation<\/a>, NASA shows SPARCS as intending to launch in Fall 2021.<\/p>\n What else is onboard?<\/p>\n A little more than half of the 40 deployments will be managed by Exolaunch, which has a presence in both Germany and the United States. The first deployment of the Twilight mission will be the first of four Connecta Internet of Things CubeSats from T\u00fcrkiye-based Plan-S Satellite and Space Technologies.<\/p>\n This will bring Plan-S up to a total of 16 IOT satellites in low Earth orbit, assuming a successful deployment and commissioning.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Twilight mission builds directly on a record-breaking year for Exolaunch,\u201d said Jeanne Allarie, Chief Investor Relations Officer at Exolaunch, in a statement. \u201cIn 2025 alone, we completed 11 launches and deployed 196 satellites, the highest annual launch cadence in our history, bringing our total to 653 satellites flown across 41 missions.<\/p>\n \u201cThis level of execution positions Exolaunch as the launch integrator of choice for satellite deployment at global scale. We are grateful to SpaceX for the outstanding collaboration and for enabling the most reliable access to space.\u201d<\/p>\n Twilight is when the day doesn\u2019t end, it simply shifts gears. \ud83d\ude80 That\u2019s exactly what\u2019s coming next: four new Connecta IoT Network satellites, designed, manufactured and engineered by Plan-S, and integrated via launch partner @Exolaunch<\/a> are set to lift off on @SpaceX<\/a> Falcon 9\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/jyJK8ElmIE<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/20260110_SPARCS_CubeSat.jpg\")
Arizona State University Professor Evgenya Shkolnik, principal investigator for the Star Planet Activity Research CubeSat mission, inspects the space instrument as it\u2019s being built in a clean room. Image: Arizona State University<\/p>\n
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et for Jan. 2026, the mission will deploy Kepler\u2019s optical data relay ring with SDA-compatible communications, hosted payloads, and on-orbit compute for real-time connectivity across space. Image: Kepler Communications<\/p>\n