SpaceX to Launch Trasnporter-4 Rideshare Mission

Falcon 9 Launches Transporter-4 | Credit: SpaceX

On Friday, April 1 at 12:24pm ET (16:24 UTC), SpaceX launched the Transporter-4 mission atop a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Transporter-4 is SpaceX's fourth dedicated rideshare mission. It took 40 spacecraft into orbit - including "CubeSats, microsats, picosats, non-deploying hosted payloads, and an orbital transfer vehicle carrying spacecraft to be deployed at a later time". The first stage for this mission, which previously flew on Crew-1, Crew-2, SXM-8, CRS-23, IXPE, and 1 Starlink mission, landed on the droneship "Of Course I Still Love You", stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. This was the 34th orbital launch attempt of 2022, 147th Falcon 9 launch, and the 155th SpaceX mission.