SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 - Transporter-1 - Launching January 24, 2021
Screenshot from SpaceX Webcast of the launch of Transporter-1
Mission Rundown: SpaceX Falcon 9 B5 - Transporter-1
Written: August 5, 2021
Just bending it like Beckham does
SpaceX successfully launched 143 satellites and 3 additional payloads for a variety of organizations on their first dedicated rideshare mission, Transporter-1. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 - SLC-40 and placed the satellites and the transfer stage into a 500 km high Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO).
To reach this orbit, SpaceX would normally launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, in a south-southwesterly direction. Instead, this mission lifted off from Florida and used the polar launch corridor that allows a Falcon 9 to set a course to fly south-southeast between Florida and The Bahamas and then, once the second stage separates, perform a “dogleg” maneuver to the south-southwest to achieve the mission’s needed inclination.
Transporter-1 was the second mission since 1969 to use this polar corridor route from Florida. SAOCOM-1B in late August 2020 was the first. After SECO-2, all 133 paying customer payloads were successfully deployed. However, unlike SpaceX’s SSO-A mission, all Transporter-1 satellites have been successfully communicated with.
Following customer payload deployment, the 10 Starlink satellites were deployed. A note of interest, these satellites were the first to be equipped with a laser communication system. While only in V0.9, they will be used to test communication between satellites instead of relying on ground stations.
B1058 first flew on its maiden flight on the SpaceX Demonstration Mission 2, which launched Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to orbit on May 30, 2020. Transporter-1 is its fifth flight; so its designation changes to B1058-5.
Following stage separation, the Falcon 9 conducted 2 burns. These burns will softly touch down the booster on Of Course I Still Love You.
SpaceX is the first entity ever to recover and refly its fairings.
These new fairings are Type 3.1 built with tip thermal protection, a lowered square protrusion, launching without acoustic tiles and moved vent holes at fairing halves edges to prevent water coming in. The recovery vessels, Go Ms. Tree and Go Ms. Chief, each recovered a fairing half’s from the water.
After being jettisoned, the two fairing halves used cold gas ACS thrusters to orientate themselves as they descended through the atmosphere. Once at a lower altitude, they deployed parafoils to help them glide down to a soft landing for recovery.
The Payload
First piece of information is that four private companies are providing other minisatellite and CubeSat builders and producers the means to deploy their space vehicles and NASA plus SpaceX are taking up space and ports. These companies are Exolaunch from Berlin, Spaceflight Inc., Seattle, WA, ISILaunch of ISISpace, Delft, the Netherlands and D-Orbit of Fino Mornasco (HQs), Italy.
Second piece of information is that physically there are 3 ESPA rings; A bottom, B middle and C top with a number of ports that are holding the different payload dispensers or ring fasteners securing the Minisatellites. C’ top has 6 ports. B’ middle has 3 ports in use, port 4 was maybe empty. A’ bottom has only used 2 ports because port 1 and 3 wasn’t used.
Thirdly know that the Payload Adapter Fitting - PAF holding the 3 ESPA rings are holding the 10 Starlink V0.9 laser data relay satellites on two shelves on the bottom ESPA ring and finally NASA have placed a CubeSat dispenser at the rear of the second stage by the engine bay as a ‘tailgunner’ for unknown reasons.
And finally this detailed PDF document about the Formosat/Sherpa share-ride mission using different payload dispensers or ring fasteners securing all the many Minisatellites and CubeSats.
Now let’s begin Rocket Mechanics 101 on placements of Payloads.
Let’s get the payloads placed physically on the 3 ESPA rings to increase the confusion.
Exolaunch from Berlin used EXO port 1 & 2 to deploy its minisatellites and CubeSats, and that translates to the middle ESPA ring B’ port 2 and 3.
Spaceflight Inc. uses 2 ESPA ports to deploy the IZANAMI Minisatellite from the middle ESPA ring B’ port 1 and from the bottom ESPA ring A’ port 4 to deploy a smaller ESPA ring aka. the freeflyer SHERPA-FX that will deploy its minisatellites and CubeSats.
ISILaunch of ISISpace used the Planet port and the Kepler port to deploy its minisatellites and CubeSats, and that translates to the top ESPA ring C’ port 4 and 1.
D-Orbit used its freeflying ION SCV Laurentius space tug to deploy its minisatellites and CubeSats. Witch is a smaller ESPA ring deployed from the bottom ESPA ring A’ port 2.
SpaceX is letting Nanoracks Eyries-1 deploy from the top ESPA ring C’ port 3 and Capella 3 and 4 deploy from the top ESPA ring C’ port 5 and 6.
Finally the top ESPA ring C’ port 2 seems to be empty, maybe a payload didn’t show.
All mentioned minisatellites and CubeSats below are either mentioned twice or just once therefore the latter must be looked upon with suspicion. Did they fly? If so, with which carrier company? Spacex Transporter-1 launched the whole mess anyway.
Other satellites on Transporter-1 include UVSQ-SAT, Hugo, ADELIS-SAMSON, PULSE, Landmapper, 8 Kepler GEN1, GNOMES-2, 2 Capella Whitney, InOrbit Now, LINCS, and XR-1, 8 Lemur-2 CubeSats, 48 SuperDove CubeSats, 36 SpaceBee CubeSats and 10 Starlink V0.9 laser data relay satellites. Some of these didn't show up for launch.
Artist's rendition of rideshare deployments from Transporter 1 (image credit: Exolaunch)
Transporter-1 included a number of satellites and also was the debut of Spaceflight’s SHERPA-FX stage. On this mission, SHERPA will be carrying 18-20 payloads.
For the first time Falcon 9 flew with a third stage on the Transporter-1 mission. The third “transfer” stage, the SHERPA-FX, is a satellite dispenser designed by Spaceflight to deploy secondary payloads so that other payloads close by cannot interfere with communications. While the SHERPA-FX does not have any on-board propulsion, it is the first of several models of SHERPA. Future versions will have a monopropellant to boost payloads into different orbits.
Falcon 9’s second stage deployed the SHERPA-FX like any other payload. After separation, the transfer stage coasted, distancing itself from the Falcon 9 second stage, and then deployed payloads. During this, the stage continued providing attitude control, telemetry, and communications to and from the satellites and the ground.
The primary purpose of SHERPA on this mission was to ensure that unlike on SSO-A, all the small satellites are able to be communicated with after reaching orbit. On SHERPA FX there are just under 20 payloads. These payloads should include 3 HawkEye, Cluster 2, PTD-1, Umbra-2001, Celestis 17, Astrocasts, ARCE, P2-10, ELROI, and TAGSAT-1.
Order please. Let’s have some order?
How do you get some kind of order in this jumble of satellite companies and satellite types and who took off first into the darkness of space. You study. HARD.
T+00:58:59 - Deployment of 36 Superdoves 3U CubeSats from Planet Labs begins from a CubeSat dispenser mounted on the top ESPA ring C’ port 4 aka. Planet Port.
T+00:59:00 - Deployment of 17 CubeSats from Kepler’s Port: 8 GEN1 6Uxl CubeSats from Kepler, 4 Superdoves 3U CubeSats, UVQS-SAT, ASELSAT, YUSAT, IDEASSAT and Hiber Four CubeSats from a CubeSat dispenser mounted on the top ESPA ring C’ port 4.
T+00:59:09 - Deployment of 3 NASA V-Rx 1U CubeSats from 2nd stage engine bay.
T+01:08:19 - Deployment of Eyries-1 with 7 Lemur 3U CubeSats from Nanoracks, plus 1 Mango One from Jacobs and 1 “Hugo” GHGSat-C2, a Minisatellite from a combined Minisatellite/CubeSat dispenser mounted on the top ESPA ring C’ port 3.
T+01:08:44 - Deployment of 28 CubeSats: Charlie, PIXL-1 ⅓ U CubeLCT, SOMP2b 2U CubeSat, ICEYE X-1 CubeSat and 24 SpaceBee’s ¼ U CubeSats from EXO port 2, that is from a CubeSat dispenser mounted on the middle ESPA ring B’ port 3.
T+01:13:58 - Deployment of Capella 3 Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite from Space from a minisatellite dispenser mounted on the top ESPA ring C’ port 5.
T+01:14:10 - Deployment of 2 ICEYE-X8 and -X9 Synthetic Aperture Radar Minisatellites from EXO port 1, that is from a double Minisatellite plate dispenser mounted on the middle ESPA ring B’ port 2.
T+01:14:23 - Deployment of IZANAMI of iQPs 100 kg Synthetic Aperture Radar SAR Minisatellite from Japan’s Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space Inc. That is from a Minisatellite dispenser mounted on the middle ESPA ring B’ port 1.
T+01:15:38 - Deployment of Capella 4 Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite from Space from a Minisatellite dispenser mounted on the top ESPA ring C’ port 6.
T+01:16:10 - Deployment of Sherpa-FX with 13 satellites: 3 HawkEye 360 mini Sats, 5 Astrocasts IoT 3U CubeSats, PTD-1 6U CubeSat, Umbra-2001, 3 ARCE, Cluster 2 + P2-10 and 3 fixated on board payloads: TAGSAT-1, Celestis 17 and ELROI from a dispenser mounted on the bottom ESPA ring A’ port 4. That means three payloads stayed behind.
T+01:16:28 - Deployment of D-Pulse carrier with 20 satellites: 8 Superdoves 3U CubeSats and 12 SpaceBEE’s from a dispenser mounted on the bottom ESPA ring A’ port 2.
T+01:31:10 - Deployment of 10 Starlink V0.9 laser data relay satellites from SpaceX.
After going through 7-8 different sources everything is getting much clearer unlike last SSO-A rideshare launch. Details about the many of the CubeSats are sketchy though.
Here’s a list of all 143 satellites launched on the Transporter-1 mission:
48 SuperDove CubeSats for Planet split i 36 + 4 + 8 deployments
36 SpaceBEE CubeSats for Swarm split in 24 + 12 deployments
8 GEN1 CubeSats for Kepler
8 Lemur-2 CubeSats for Spire
5 Astrocast CubeSats
3 HawkEye 360 CubeSats
3 ICEYE SAR Mini Satellites
3 V-R3x CubeSats for NASA - deployed from 2nd stage engine bay
3 ARCE-1 CubeSats for the University of South Florida link
2 Capella 3 & 4 SAR Minisatellites
iQPS-2 IZANAMI SAR Minisatellite for iQPS of Japan
YUSAT CubeSat for Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology
IDEASSAT CubeSat for Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology
UVQS-SAT CubeSat for LATMOS of France
ASELSAT CubeSat for ASELSAN of Turkey
Hiber Four CubeSat for Hiber of the Netherlands
SOMP2b CubeSat for TU Dresden of Germany
PIXL-1 CubeSat for DLR of Germany
Charlie CubeSat for U.S.-based Aurora Insight
Hugo Mini Satellite for GHGSat of Canada
PTD-1 CubeSat for NASA
Prometheus CubeSat for Los Alamos National Laboratory
Sherpa-FX space tug for Spaceflight + Celestis 17 & ELROI as fixed payloads
D-Orbit’s ION SCV Laurentius space tug
10 Starlink satellites for SpaceX
That’s all folks. My head hurts. Sorry. It was a mess. But what is this… Nuggets
