SpaceX’s Bandwagon-4 Delivers 18 Payloads, Including Korean SAR, Vast Demo and H100 AI Satellite
The mid‑inclination rideshare advanced in‑orbit technology demonstrations while integrating a sensitive reconnaissance spacecraft.
Overview
- Falcon 9 lifted off at 1:09 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral and deployed all payloads into low Earth orbit about 75 minutes after launch.
- The largest spacecraft was South Korea’s Project 425 satellite equipped with a synthetic aperture radar payload.
- Vast’s 500‑kilogram Haven‑Demo launched to validate avionics, communications, thrusters and solar arrays for the planned Haven‑1 station.
- Starcloud‑1 carried an Nvidia H100 to run AI models in orbit, described as the first data‑center‑class GPU demonstration in space.
- Exolaunch handled deployment for 13 of the 18 spacecraft, including three ICEYE SAR satellites for Space42 and two weather satellites from Tomorrow.io; booster B1091 returned to Landing Zone 2.