SpaceX Falcon 9 Boosts Record 143 Satellites Into Orbit on 'Rideshare' Mission
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket boosted a record 143 small satellites into a polar orbit on Sunday in the company's first dedicated "rideshare" mission, a response to the growing demand for low-cost access to space by smaller, non-traditional companies and institutions.
The "Transporter 1" mission also served as a reminder of the ongoing debate over what role the government should play regulating the increasingly crowded domain of low-Earth orbit where collisions would create high-speed shrapnel threatening other spacecraft.
"No universally accepted 'rules of the road' exist for the safety of space operations, much less a regulatory regime for active risk management and collision avoidance," NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel wrote in its recently released 2020 annual report.