Elon Musk's SpaceX launches 143 satellites in a single flight.
                     ELON MUSK'S 
SPACEX LAUNCHES 
143 SATELLITES IN 
A SINGLE FLIGHT
INTRODUCTIO
N
Elon Musk's company SpaceX has 
successfully launched the 
Transporter-1 mission, breaking the 
record for the greatest number of 
satellites ever flown on a single 
rocket.
Source: www.forbes.com
FALCON 9
On Sunday, January 24 at 10 
A.M. Eastern Time, the 
company's Falcon 9 lifted off 
from Cape Canaveral in Florida, 
with 143 commercial and 
government satellites on board.
Source: www.forbes.com
SUN-SYNCHRONOUS 
ORBIT
The satellites were launched into 
a sun-synchronous orbit, one 
that stays in constant daylight, 
about 500 kilometers above 
Earth’s surface.
Source: www.forbes.com
SPACEX 
LAUNCHES
About eight minutes later, the 
bottom section of the rocket 
returned to Earth and landed in 
the Atlantic Ocean on a floating 
barge called Of Course I Still 
Love You – a norm now on 
SpaceX launches.
Source: www.forbes.com
RIDESHARE 
PROGRAM
The launch was the first in 
SpaceX's new “Rideshare 
Program”, designed to launch 
many satellites at a time and 
enable organizations to reach 
space at a lower cost.
Source: www.forbes.com
COST 
ANALYSIS
It cost just $1 million to place a 
satellite up to 200 kilograms on 
Transporter-1, and then $5,000 
for every kilogram thereafter.
Source: www.forbes.com
LAUNCH OF 143 
SATELLITES 
The launch of 143 satellites 
broke the previous record for the 
most number of satellites on a 
launch, set by India in 2017 
when it launched 104 on a single 
rocket.
Source: www.forbes.com
SATELLITES ON 
BOARD 
The satellites on board included 
48 satellites from Earth imaging 
company Planet Labs, a small 
NASA mission called V-R3x to 
test ways to track small 
spacecraft in Earth orbit, and 36 
small communications satellites 
from Swarm Technologies.
Source: www.forbes.com
SPACEX’S OWN 
SATELLITES 
Ten of SpaceX’s own satellites in 
its controversial Starlink internet 
mega constellation were 
included, which reached the 
milestone of 1,000 satellites 
launched last week.
Source: www.forbes.com
CONCERN
The large number of satellites on 
board – while impressive – has 
caused some concern, 
specifically regarding space 
traffic management.
Source: www.forbes.com