SpaceX ’ s Transporter-1 mission , which launched on 24 Jan , comfortably beat the previous record of 108 satellites launched by Northrop Grumman in 2018 . With a total of 143 satellites and other payloads on board , SpaceX also more than doubled its own record of 64 . The launch was part of the company ’ s SmallSat Rideshare Program , which boasts launch costs as low as $ 1mn to launch 200kg to orbit , opening up the frontier of space to much smaller businesses .

Photo by Airman First Class Thomas Sjoberg , U . S . Space Force technologymagazine . com 9