When its Transporter 1 ride-share mission blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 7 a.m., SpaceX lifted a record-breaking number of satellites in a single payload. On Sunday morning, PT (10 a.m. ET).
In addition to 10 of SpaceX’s own Starlink broadband satellites, the payload for this space equivalent of an Uber to orbit includes a cornucopia of small satellites from government and commercial organizations. The company says that there are 143 small spacecraft onboard in total, which it considers to be a record.
Source: SPACEX
The first-stage booster returned for a pinpoint landing on the SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Always Love You in the Atlantic about nine minutes after boosting the payload and second stage on their way to space.
There was some last-minute moving around in the weeks leading up to the launch after two DARPA satellites were inadvertently destroyed at a production facility earlier this month. A last-minute addition has also been the Starlink satellites. A number of small spacecraft from Nanoracks and more from the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the US Department of Defense and several others are part of the payload.