Launch

Three Satellites Failed to Deploy from Transporter-9

Image: SpaceX

It turns out Transporter-9 deployment didn’t go as smoothly as planned for some passengers. Momentus ($MNTS) announced last week that three of the five satellites it had carried failed to deploy from the third-party deployer it used for the mission, and are now presumed lost.

“Based on the results of a detailed investigation undertaken, the company does not believe those satellites were released from the third-party deployer system,” the company said in a statement.

What’s lost? The three satellites that did not deploy, according to previous reports on the mission manifest and a little power of deduction, are:

  1. The AMAN-1 EO satellite for Poland’s SatRev
  2. JINJUSat-1, an EO satellite for South Korea’s CONTEC
  3. The Picacho tech demonstrator for Lunasonde

SatRev is having particularly bad luck on the road to orbit—this is the second AMAN satellite that never made it, after version 1 flew on a failed Virgin Orbit launch this year. Two IoT demo satellites for Hello Space successfully deployed to orbit.

Mea culpa: Momentus didn’t use its in-house Vigoride tug for Transporter-9 because the satellites flying didn’t need extra delta-V or maneuvering after launch. Instead, it tapped an unidentified third-party deployer. Momentus and SpaceX are still working on investigating the cause of the failed deployment. 

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