SpaceX is poised to launch its Transporter-9 mission today (Nov. 11), a ‘rideshare’ flight that will loft 90 payloads to orbit.
A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base today during a 55-minute window that opes at 1:49 p.m. EST (1849 GMT; 10:49 a.m. local California time), kicking off the Transporter-9 mission.
You can watch it live via SpaceX’s account on X (formerly known as Twitter). Coverage is expected to begin about five minutes before liftoff.
Related: 8 ways that SpaceX has transformed spaceflight
If all goes according to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come back to Earth for a vertical touchdown at Vandenberg about 7.5 minutes after liftoff. It will be the 12th launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description.
The mission is carrying 90 payloads for a variety of different customers, “including cubesats, microsats, and orbital transfer vehicles carrying spacecraft to be deployed at a later time,” the mission description reads.
These payloads will be deployed into low Earth orbit between 54 and 85.5 minutes after liftoff, according to the mission description.
Ninety is a hefty number to be sure, but it isn’t close to a record. SpaceX’s Transporter-1 mission holds the mark, sending 143 satellites to orbit in January 2021. And Transporter-6, which lifted off this past January, was also more prolific, carrying 114 satellites aloft.
Transporter-9 will be the 82nd orbital mission for SpaceX in 2023, extending the company’s record for a single year. (The previous mark, 61 launches, was set in 2022.) Most of this year’s missions have been devoted to building out Starlink, SpaceX’s internet megaconstellation, which currently consist of more than 5,000 operational satellites.
