SpaceX just launched another big fleet of satellites to the final frontier.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 70 payloads for a variety of customers lifted off from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base today (June 23) at 5:25 p.m. EDT (2125 GMT; 2:25 p.m. local California time), on a rideshare mission known as Transporter 14.
Transporter 14 is lofting microsats, cubesats and reentry capsules, including one that’s carrying cremated remains and human DNA on a memorial mission.
The Falcon 9’s first stage came back to Earth today as planned, touching down on the SpaceX drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” in the Pacific Ocean about 8.5 minutes after liftoff.
It was the 26th launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description. That’s close to the company’s reusability record, which currently stands at 28 flights.
The rocket’s upper stage, meanwhile, continued powering its way to low Earth orbit, where it has a lot of work to do: It will deploy the menagerie of payloads over a nearly two-hour span that begins roughly 54 minutes after launch.
Those payloads include private Earth-observing satellites, such as Capella Space’s Capella-17 synthetic aperture radar craft, and Starfish Space’s Otter Pup 2, which will attempt to perform the first-ever commercial docking in LEO later this year.
Transporter 14 is also carrying the fourth reentry capsule for California company Varda Space, which is working to manufacture pharmaceuticals and other goods in space and return them to Earth.
Also aboard the Falcon 9 upper stage is The Exploration Company’s new Nyx reusable spacecraft, which is flying a memorial mission in cooperation with the space-burial company Celestis.
Nyx — the final payload to be deployed today — is carrying cremated remains and/or DNA from about 150 people. If all goes to plan, the spacecraft will circle Earth two or three times and then be recovered.
As its name suggests, Transporter 14 is the 14th mission in SpaceX’s rideshare series. The first of these, Transporter 1 back in January 2021, set a single-launch record, sending a whopping 143 satellites to orbit.
The company also operates another rideshare program called Bandwagon, which has three missions under its belt to date.