Matthew Nelson
SpaceX has used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch Spaceflight‘s first rideshare mission for multiple government and commercial entities worldwide.
The rocket lifted off Monday at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to deploy 64 payloads to low-Earth orbit as part of the SSO-A: A SmallSat Express mission, SpaceX said Monday.
Cargo includes 49 cubesats and 15 microsats from 34 public and private sector organizations.
Falcon 9 conducted a series of six deployments 13 to 43 minutes after launch, then Spaceflight began to operate the Seattle-based aerospace company’s deployment sequences.
The mission represented the first time SpaceX reused a launch vehicle booster thrice.
