Update Aug. 26, 4:05 p.m. EDT: SpaceX landed its booster and successfully deployed the payloads.
SpaceX launched its 37th Falcon 9 rocket launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base this year, late Tuesday morning. The orbital flight features a defense satellite for Luxembourg along with multiple other rideshare payloads.
The mission featured OHB Italia’s NAOS (National Advanced Optical System) spacecraft will fly on a southerly trajectory after taking off from Space Launch Complex 4 East. Liftoff happened at 11:53 a.m. PDT (2:53 p.m. EDT / 1853 UTC), the first opportunity in a 27-minute window.
SpaceX used its Falcon 9 first stage booster B1063 to launch the mission, which flew for a 27th time. Its previous flights included NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft, the Transporter-7 rideshare and three missions for the National Reconnaissance Office.
Around eight minutes after liftoff, B1063 returned to Landing Zone 4, near the launch site, for a propulsive touchdown. This was the 28th landing at LZ-4 and the 493rd booster landing to date.
Luxembourg in space
The main satellite on this mission was the NAOS spacecraft, which is designed for use by the government and military of Luxembourg. The satellite is an Earth-observing vehicle designed to capture up to 100 very high resolution images daily and features a panchromatic and multispectral camera.
The satellite, also referred to as LUXEOSys, will orbit the Earth 15 times per day in a low Earth orbit at an altitude of 450 km (280 mi). It was manufactured by OHB Italia and has a planned service life of seven years, with the potential for a three-year extension of that.
NAOS is expected to have a minimum response time of about 17 hours between a specific image being requested and it being delivered. It was transported from OHB Italia’s facilities to the Airbus Space Test Facility in Toulouse for environmental testing back in May 2023.
The NAOS satellites was originally supposed to launch on a Vega-C rocket from French Guiana, but the Government of Luxembourg decided to switch to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 following the failure of the VV22 mission in December 2022.
Hitching a ride
Joining the NAOS satellite were several other rideshare payloads from multiple countries, including the United States and India.
Earth-imaging company, Planet, is sending up two more of its Gen 1 Pelican satellites, designed to provide “up to 40 cm class resolution imagery across 6 multispectral bands optimized for cross-sensor analysis.”
The company is planning for “several” Pelican launches this year after announcing in July that its production line for both Pelican and Tanager satellites is now “fully ramped and operational.”
“Building on our recently-announced satellite service partnerships in Asia and Europe, we’ve ramped up production of our Pelican fleet,” said Will Marshall, Co-Founder and CEO of Planet, in a statement. “Launching these additional satellites enables us to more rapidly respond to market needs. With high resolution, low latency, and NVIDIA’s lightning-fast GPU onboard, Pelicans are the optimal satellites to meet the demands of the AI transformation.”
Also sharing the Falcon 9 rocket are seven other satellites. Those include the first commercial satellite from India-based Dhruva Space, LEAP-1, using its P-30 satellite bus, and six satellites managed by Germany-based Exolaunch.
- Capella Space – Acadia-6
- Pixxel – 3 Firefly satellites (FFLY-1, -2, -3)
- Undisclosed – 2 satellites for “an undisclosed U.S. commercial customer”
“With this new mission, we’re not only contributing to the growth of the world’s most advanced satellite constellations for our customers, but thanks to SpaceX we’re also expanding valuable new launch capacity beyond traditional Transporter missions,” said Jeanne Allarie, Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer of Exolaunch.
“We’re proud to continue enabling fast, reliable access to space for industry leaders like Capella Space, Pixxel and more — and we are grateful to SpaceX for making additional missions available to our long-standing customers.”
However, SpaceX made no mention of the two satellites for the “undisclosed U.S. commercial customer” during its launch broadcast and following the final announced deployment.
🛰️ LEAP-1 FLIES TONIGHT!#DhruvaSpace‘s first commercial satellite venture built on the P-30 satellite bus is hosting two innovative In-Orbit Demonstration (IOD) payloads developed by Australia-based @AkulaTech and @EsperSats.
🚀 Scheduled for launch aboard #SpaceX’s Falcon 9… pic.twitter.com/0JeH0OMa1w
— Dhruva Space (@DhruvaSpace) August 26, 2025
