Indian Start-ups Launch Payloads on SpaceX Transporter-18

On 2 October 2026, payloads from Dhruva Space, TakeMe2Space, SatLeo Labs and EON Space Labs reached orbit aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket on the Transporter-18 rideshare mission. The launch took place at 12:02 am IST from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, and the mission carried about 130 payloads in total.

Transporter Rideshare Mission

Transporter is a SpaceX rideshare programme for launching multiple small satellites on a single Falcon 9 mission. Rideshare missions are used for deploying commercial satellites, technology demonstrators and Earth-observation payloads into orbit.

Dhruva Space LEAP-2

Dhruva Space deployed LEAP-2, its second commercial mission using the P-30 satellite platform. LEAP-2 carries two in-orbit demonstration payloads, namely a star tracker developed by Sodern of France and TAPAS-1 from SatLeo Labs.

TakeMe2Space MOI-1A and EON Space Labs MIRA

TakeMe2Space launched MOI-1A, a 14-kg satellite designed to run artificial intelligence models directly in orbit on Earth-observation data. The satellite carries 117 trillion operations per second of onboard computing capacity, 2 TB of storage and a nine-band multispectral imager. EON Space Labs’ MIRA, a 502-gram optical telescope, flew aboard MOI-1A as a pathfinder for a planned small satellite constellation.

Important Facts for Exams

• Falcon 9 is a two-stage, partially reusable launch vehicle developed by SpaceX.
• Vandenberg Space Force Base is located in California, USA, and is used for polar and sun-synchronous launches.
• IN-SPACe is the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre, which authorises private space activities in India.
• Thermal infrared sensing is used in applications such as urban heat monitoring and crop stress analysis.

SatLeo Labs TAPAS-1

TAPAS-1 is described as India’s first dedicated commercial thermal payload. It uses thermal infrared sensing to capture temperature information for Earth-observation applications, including urban heat monitoring and crop stress analysis. The mission placed Indian private-sector payloads in orbit under authorisation from IN-SPACe. Transporter-18 carried technology demonstrators for thermal imaging, Earth observation and AI-based data processing in space.