{"id":553853,"date":"2026-03-30T08:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T08:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/553853\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T08:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T08:22:08","slug":"spacex-to-launch-119-payloads-on-smallsat-rideshare-mission-from-california-spaceflight-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/553853\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX to launch 119 payloads on smallsat rideshare mission from California \u2013 Spaceflight Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"File: SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket stands at Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base ahead of the Starlink 17-31 mission on March 13, 2026. Image: SpaceX<\/p>\n

SpaceX is gearing up to launch its third largest smallsat rideshare mission on Monday morning.<\/p>\n

The Transporter-16 mission will fly 119 payloads to a Sun-synchronous, low Earth orbit on a Falcon 9 rocket launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base.<\/p>\n

Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East is scheduled for 4:02 a.m. PDT (7:02 a.m. EDT \/ 1102 UTC).<\/p>\n

Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about 30 minutes prior to liftoff.<\/p>\n

\ufeff<\/p>\n

The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission has the tail number B1093. This will be its 12th flight including a pair of missions for the Space Development Agency and nine batches of Starlink satellites.<\/p>\n

A little more than 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1093 will target a landing on the drone ship, \u2018Of Course I Still Love You,\u2019 positioned in the Pacific Ocean. If successful, this will be the 187th landing on this vessel and the 592nd booster landing for the company to date.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s onboard?<\/p>\n

Like all of SpaceX\u2019s rideshare missions, this flight supports dozens of customers, from companies to sovereign governments to academia.<\/p>\n

Two companies who managed manifesting the majority of the payloads are Exolaunch (57 payloads) and Seops Space (19 payloads).<\/p>\n

\u201cExolaunch is enabling launch access for more than 25 commercial, institutional, and government customers from the United States, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, France, Finland, Greece, Italy, Spain, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, and more on this mission,\u201d Exolaunch said in a statement in February.<\/p>\n

The payloads overseen by Seops Space are a combination of 14 CubeSats and five PocketQubes. The latter of which are from a company called Alba Orbital and are Earth observation satellites.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Seops Transporter-16 manifest represents a truly global cross-section of the small satellite community, with payloads originating from 13 countries, including Canada, France, Malaysia, Nepal, Norway, Romania, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam,\u201d Seops said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Other notable payloads include Varda Space\u2019s sixth reentry satellite bus, designed for on-orbit manufacturing, and the so-called \u2018cake topper,\u2019 the Gravitas satellite from K2 Space.<\/p>\n

The Gravitas satellite has a wingspan of 40 meters with its solar panels unfurled and weighs about two metric tons. It\u2019s designed to produce 20 kW of electricity.<\/p>\n

At K2 Space, we\u2019re Building Bigger to deploy the largest satellites ever on orbit.<\/p>\n

Matt Cooper, our Principal Mission Assurance Engineer, describes what it\u2019s taken to get Gravitas on orbit. As our first free-flying satellite, it meant working through every step end-to-end, from\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/pEJ1tOkdfj<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 K2 Space Corporation (@K2SpaceCo) March 23, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

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