SpaceX has launched large amounts of satellites for various private customers. The company’s Transporter-10 mission launched on time at 5:05 PM ET (2205 GMT) on Monday, March 4, from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Today’s launch will place 53 payloads into various orbits, including the True Anomaly Jackal spacecraft, which has a wide array of cubes and nanosats, and the Aires satellite, built by spacecraft manufacturer Apex, which will itself carry several payloads. If all goes well, all 53 satellites will be deployed from SpaceX’s upper unit approximately 2 hours after launch.

The launch marked the 20th launch of SpaceX Falcon 9 in 2024. The company said it plans to make 144 launches this year.

Approximately 7 minutes and 40 seconds after liftoff, SpaceX landed the launch vehicle’s first stage at Vandenberg’s Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) as planned today; This marked the company’s 280th overall successful launch and the 205th consecutive landing of an orbital-class rocket. .

Transporter-10 is a mission known as shared driving; This means transporting several small loads for many customers. These launches offer private companies a convenient and more affordable way to launch satellites into orbit without having to “pull up” and wait for a larger spacecraft to launch. This mission will be SpaceX’s tenth mission to date.

Due to the large number of payloads, today’s launch will include a variety of deployment events from different orbits. The first deployment is expected to occur approximately 53 minutes into the flight, shortly after the rocket’s second-stage Merlin vacuum engine shuts down.

This mission will be the fifth flight of SpaceX’s B1081 Falcon 9 launch vehicle. It had previously launched the first-stage launch vehicle International Astronaut Mission Crew-7, the CRS-29 cargo flight to the ISS, a group of Starlink satellites, and NASA’s PACE ocean observation satellite.