SpaceX plans to send 74 satellites to orbit from central California early Saturday morning (March 15).
A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Saturday on a rideshare mission called Transporter 13.
Launch will occur during a 17-minute window that opens at 2:39 a.m. EDT (0639 GMT; 11:39 p.m. on March 14 local California time). SpaceX will livestream the action via X, with coverage starting about 15 minutes before liftoff.
The 74 satellites going up on Saturday include “cubesats, micosats, hosted payloads, a reentry capsule and an orbital transfer vehicle carrying 11 of those payloads to be deployed at a later time,” SpaceX wrote in a mission description.
Related: SpaceX launches 131 satellites on Transporter 12 rideshare mission (video)
The reentry capsule is the W-3 vehicle from California-based Varda Space Industries. Varda has already launched and returned two such capsules, prototypes of its planned orbital mini-factories. The second such return occurred just two weeks ago.
The 74 payloads will be deployed by the Falcon 9’s upper stage over a roughly 90-minute stretch that begins about 54 minutes after liftoff, according to the Transporter 13 mission description.
The rocket’s first stage, meanwhile, will return to Earth 7.5 minutes after launch, making a vertical, powered touchdown back at Vandenberg. It will be the 13th launch and landing for this particular booster.
As its name suggests, Transporter 13 will be the 13th mission in SpaceX’s Transporter series. The company also runs another rideshare program called Bandwagon, which has two missions under its belt to date. SpaceX has launched more than 1,200 payloads for about 130 customers across both of these programs, according to the company.
The very first Transporter mission, which launched in January 2021, sent 143 payloads to orbit, a record that still stands today.
