Multiple Indian payloads launched by Space X’s Falcon 9
Indian private space companies Dhruva Space and SatLeo Labs successfully launched multiple payloads, including a thermal sensing CubeSat, via a SpaceX Falcon 9 mission. This milestone marks a significant step in India's private space sector's ability to handle end-to-end mission integration.
Why it matters
It demonstrates the growing capability of India's private space industry to compete globally and manage complex satellite deployments independently.
Multiple payloads developed by Indian companies were successfully deployed in orbit by Space X’s Falcon 9 in the early hours of October 2 from the Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, U.S.A., as part of the Transporter-18 rideshare mission.
Dhruva Space’s Launching Expeditions for Aspiring Payloads (LEAP-2), hosting multiple In-Orbit Demonstration (IOD) missions, which includes a star tracker by France-based Sodern ArianeGroup, and TAPAS-1 by India-based Satleo Labs, were part of the Transporter-18 mission.
Dhruva Space stated that LEAP-2 was successfully deployed in orbit at 1 a.m. IST on October 2. It has undertaken the end-to-end launch integration of the LEAP-2 satellite with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle, building on its experience with LEAP-1 , where Dhruva Space became the first private Indian company to undertake the launch vehicle integration of its satellite in-house.
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