SpaceX Falcon 9 Deploys Multiple Indian Private Payloads in Orbit

Multiple payloads developed by Indian private companies were successfully launched and deployed into orbit by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket on October 2, 2026. The launch took place from the Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California as part of the Transporter-18 rideshare mission, which delivered a total of 130 payloads into space.

Payloads and Missions

Dhruva Space deployed its Launching Expeditions for Aspiring Payloads (LEAP-2) satellite at 1 a.m. IST on October 2. LEAP-2 hosts multiple In-Orbit Demonstration missions, including a star tracker built by France-based Sodern ArianeGroup, and Satleo Labs' TAPAS-1 payload. Dhruva Space managed the end-to-end launch integration for the satellite in-house. The mission will use the company's ground infrastructure, including its ground station in Luleå, Sweden. Satleo Labs, based in Ahmedabad, launched TAPAS-1 as India's first dedicated commercial CubeSat-category thermal payload. The 14-kg satellite from TakeMe2Space, named MOI-1A, also joined the flight carrying an onboard computing capacity of 117 trillion operations per second, 2 terabytes of storage, and a nine-band multispectral imager to run artificial intelligence models directly in orbit.

Reactions and Leadership

Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre Chairperson Pawan Kumar Goenka stated on social media that the deployment marks a notable milestone for India's private space industry. Goenka highlighted that the flight carried two Indian satellites and an Indian hosted payload, all authorized by IN-SPACe, showcasing capabilities in orbital computing, thermal intelligence, and homegrown hosting platforms.

Context

Private space missions are increasingly relying on rideshare services like SpaceX's Transporter flights to lower the cost of sending payloads into orbit. Such commercial missions allow smaller private firms and startups to test new technologies, such as thermal imaging and on-board artificial intelligence processing, without needing their own dedicated launch vehicles.