For example, Rocket Lab's Electron rocket can deliver about 300 kg into low Earth orbit for about $7.5 million. These companies can offer dedicated launches to specific orbits, but the service comes at a price. However, SpaceX's expansion into small-satellite launches has put considerable pressure on other companies developing small rockets to deliver satellites into orbit. The anniversary of the rocket's first flight is Wednesday. Tuesday's launch attempt will fly to orbit on a first stage that has already flown seven times. The program also leverages the investment SpaceX put into developing reusability. The ride-share service offered by SpaceX-which has the world's lowest-cost, only fully reusable orbital rocket in the Falcon 9-helps the company fill out its manifest. SpaceX plans to launch such ride-share missions about every four months, depending on demand. The company advertises access to Sun Synchronous Orbit for as little as $1 million for 200 kg. SpaceX developed the ride-share program for its Falcon 9 rocket to increase the number of purely commercial launches performed by the workhorse booster. "The invaluable information gathered from these experiments will far outpace the monetary investment made up front as we begin to lay the foundation for the national defense space architecture.” “This figure represents a tremendous value to the government for four satellites and a payload," an agency spokesman said. The agency is launching five satellites on the Transporter-2 mission at a cost of about $21 million. Part of the Department of Defense, the Space Development Agency seeks to advance the ability of the nation to get its satellites into space in a timely and cost-efficient manner. The mission will carry a total of 88 small satellites from a variety of customers, including private companies such as ICEYE and Umbra, as well as the US government's Space Development Agency. Original post : SpaceX is preparing to launch its second dedicated ride-share mission for its Falcon 9 rocket, named Transporter-2, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday afternoon. There is simply no way that humanity can become a spacefaring civilization without major regulatory reform. Unfortunately, launch is called off for today, as an aircraft entered the “keep out zone”, which is unreasonably gigantic. SpaceX founder Elon Musk was not happy with the situation. The company will now turn around the vehicle for another launch attempt on Wednesday afternoon. The scrub was necessitated by a range issue caused by an airplane in the launch zone. Update 3 pm EDT Tuesday update: The countdown clock got to T-11 seconds on Tuesday afternoon before SpaceX called a hold to the launch of its Transporter-2 ride-share mission. The webcast for today's launch, embedded below, should begin about 15 minutes before the window opens. Nothing has been made official, but several sources report that Tuesday's scrub just 11 seconds before liftoff was triggered by a charter helicopter carrying sightseers in the "keep out" zone for the launch. Update 12:15 pm EDT : SpaceX is preparing, again, to launch its Falcon 9 rocket carrying 88 small satellites for a variety of customers. The 58-minute launch window for the Transporter-2 mission opens at 2:56 pm EDT (18:56 UTC) on Wednesday. This was the company's 20th launch of this year, a cadence of one mission every nine days. While the rocket's second stage entered a nominal parking orbit, the first stage safely returned to a landing zone along the Florida coast. Update 3:45 pm EDT : After a short delay due to weather issues, SpaceX successfully launched its Transporter-2 mission on Wednesday.
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