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. Doubts grow over IRIS² scheme
2. Scotland’s rocket launch gets closer
3. SpaceX tops 6,300 Starlinks; IPO rumours
4. Full details of SES, Intelsat deal
5. Ariane 6 launch campaign underway
6. Virgin Galactic in stock split
7. Thuraya-3 suffers major problem
8. AST SpaceMobile hit by Class Action
9. Optimism under threat at SES

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