SpaceX Inaugurates Smallsat Rideshare Program, Launching 3 of Planet's Satellites

Less than a year ago, Elon Musk's SpaceX -- king of low-cost launches for large satellites -- made its move to capture the "smallsat" market, as well. First announcing a "Smallsat Rideshare Program" in which it would launch annual, dedicated rocket rides to space for dozens of customers' satellites at a time, SpaceX quickly expanded its offering, inviting customers to hitch a ride on SpaceX's (more frequent) launches of its own "Starlink" internet satellites.

SpaceX's Starlink V1 L8 mission carried 58 Starlink and three Planet SkySat satellites into orbit Saturday. Image source: SpaceX.

Every month, the company said, it planned to launch at least one batch of up to 60 Starlinks into orbit. If a customer liked, though, SpaceX could drop a few Starlinks from its manifest and substitute in a customer's satellites instead -- piggybacking them on the main Starlink mission and charging as little as $5,000 per kilogram for the privilege.

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Source Fool.com