While flying humans into space, and perhaps as far as Mars, might be Elon Musk’s ultimate goal – he is also saying to small satellite designers and operators to join his Falcon 9 club of clients.

SpaceX says its new SmallSat Rideshare project will help get smallish satellites into Sun-Synchronous Orbits for ultra-low fees of just $2.25 million, for up to 150 kgs of satellite and measuring up to 15” across.

Larger/heavier craft, up to 300 kgs will cost $4.5 million per launch.

Significantly smaller satellites (often called ‘Cubesats’) which are invariably scientific in nature, or developed by universities can see their Cubesats aggregated and launched together in a batch.

What Musk’s team is offering are regularly scheduled launches, without delays in waiting for a space aboard a rocket to become available.

SpaceX has listed the availability strategy, starting with a flight later next year (Nov 2020-Mar 2021), followed by flights in Q1/2022 and Q1/2023.

Other posts by :

1. Rakuten makes historic satellite video call
2. Rocket Lab confirms D2C ambitions
3. Turkey establishes satellite production ecosystem
4. Italy joins Germany in IRIS2 alternate thoughts
5. Kazakhstan to create museum at Yuri Gagarin launch site
6. AST SpaceMobile gets $42 or $1500 price target
7. Analyst: GEO bloodbath taking place
8. SES AGM results: Appaloosa still objecting
9. SpaceX’s Shotwell worth $1.2bn

Categories: Blogs, Inside Satellite, Satellite