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 Chris Forrester:

1. Musk grabs the booster
2. Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket “has a chance”
3. Differing opinions on Project Kuiper
4. IRIS2 contract signing at year-end
5. Icasa “over-reached” in confiscating StarSat kit
6. Starlink tests D2C in Romania, US, Japan
7. European telcos unite against Starlink D2C
8. Rivada insists “deadlines will be met”
9. Ergen will gain “greatest opportunity” by losing DISH

Categories: Blogs, Inside Satellite, Satellite