The aerospace company SpaceX continues to actively deliver satellites for various purposes into outer space. This time, as part of the Transporter 12 mission, the Falcon 9 launch vehicle launched 131 vehicles into orbit.
Image source: nasaspaceflight.com
The Falcon 9 rocket was launched from the Vandenberg Space Force site in California on January 14 at 11:09 local time (22:09 Moscow time). Note that the impressive number of payloads sent into space is not a record for Falcon 9. As part of the current mission, 131 satellites were placed on board the carrier, but in January 2021, during the Transporter 1 mission, 143 satellites were delivered into orbit. At the moment, this achievement remains a record for SpaceX.
The first stage of the launch vehicle landed at Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) at Vandenberg Air Force Base approximately 8 minutes after launch. For SpaceX, this was the 397th successful landing of the first stage of a Falcon 9. For the first stage used in the Transporter 12 mission, this was the second flight.
As for the Transporter 12 mission payload, the satellites sent into space have different owners. According to the source, 37 of the 131 devices belong to the San Francisco-based company Planet, which operates three satellite constellations for remote sensing of the Earth. It is noted that 36 of 37 Planet devices belong to the CubeSat SuperDove class and have dimensions the size of a shoebox.
A larger satellite capable of taking clearer pictures of the Earth’s surface is called Pelican-2. It is also known that the Pelican-2 device is equipped with an advanced Nvidia Jetson system to ensure the functionality of artificial intelligence-based functions in orbit. Due to this, it is planned to reduce the time between collecting and processing data before it reaches the company’s clients. Pelican-2 is designed to quickly transform spatial data into analytics information virtually online, aided by the use of AI solutions for object detection, classification of vegetation and crop types, and disaster response.