LAKE MARY, Fla. - The weather behaved just in time for SpaceX to launch the Transporter-4 mission to a sun-synchronous orbit on Friday.
The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off into the cloudy sky at 12:24 p.m. ET from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Falcon 9’s first stage booster previously launched Crew-1, Crew-2, SXM-8, CRS-23, IXPE, and one Starlink mission. Following stage separation, SpaceX will land Falcon 9’s first stage on the Just Read the Instructions droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
Transporter-4 is SpaceX’s fourth dedicated smallsat rideshare mission.
"On this flight are 40 spacecraft, including CubeSats, microsats, picosats, non-deploying hosted payloads, and an orbital transfer vehicle carrying spacecraft to be deployed at a later time," SpaceX says.
On Thursday, weather was only 30% favorable for liftoff conditions. However, on Friday afternoon it improved to 60% for a successful liftoff.
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