Cape Canaveral, Florida – On November 2, 2025, SpaceX launched the fourth Bandwagon rideshare mission, sending multiple payloads to mid-inclination orbits, including technology demonstration satellites for space stations and orbital data centers.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 1:09 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. All payloads were successfully deployed into low Earth orbit approximately 75 minutes after liftoff.

Bandwagon-4 continues the series of rideshare missions designed for mid-inclination orbits, announced by SpaceX in 2023 to meet demand slightly below that for sun-synchronous orbits used in Transporter missions.

The largest payload on Bandwagon-4 was a reconnaissance satellite for South Korea’s Project 425 program, carrying a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) instrument, following three previous similar satellites.

The mission also included 17 additional satellites, among them Haven-Demo, a 500-kilogram spacecraft from commercial space station developer Vast. “It’s going to be testing out key systems related to Haven-1,” said Rich Leshner, vice president of government relations at Vast. Technologies tested include flight computers, avionics, communications systems, thrusters, and solar arrays. Vast CEO Max Haot noted the $10 million cost of Haven-Demo compared to $1 billion for Haven-1.

Other participants included Tomorrow.io, launching two commercial weather satellites, and Iceye, deploying three SAR satellites for Emirati company Space42’s “Foresight Constellation.” Starcloud debuted its Starcloud-1 AI data center satellite, carrying an advanced Nvidia processor to run AI models, including a version of Google’s Gemini. “It is the first time that anyone has tried to launch an AI data center to space,” said Philip Johnston, Starcloud’s CEO.

Starcloud also announced plans to collaborate with Rendezvous Robotics on future self-assembling spacecraft, envisioning solar panels and radiators several kilometers long.

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