Transporter-18 Mission Scheduled to Launch From Vandenberg SFB Thursday Afternoon

VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. (KEYT) – A Falcon 9 launch of the Transporter-18 mission is scheduled from Space Launch Complex 4 East on Thursday, Oct. 1, between 11:18 a.m. and 12:16 p.m. Pacific Time.

A backup 58-minute launch window for the mission has been scheduled for the following day, Friday, Oct. 2 at the same time.

The Transporter-18 mission is a smallsat ride share launch carrying 130 separate payloads destined for a low-Earth, sun-synchronous orbit shared SpaceX.

One of the payloads on Thursday's launch is Carbon Mapper's Tanager-2, a satellite constellation intended to help the non-profit consortium provide global monitoring of methane and CO₂ among other impactful environmental indicators through a team of observational satellites.

The first Tanager launch was aboard the Transporter-11 mission which lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in August of 2024 alongside other groundbreaking observational satellite constellations.

The Tanager launches use visible and infrared imaging spectrometers developed at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology to generate comprehensive measurements of over 25 environmental indicators.

Carbon Mapper will collaborate with the California Air Resources Board to publish their findings on a public portal in the future, but you can check out the exciting observations already being made here.

"These satellites will help California identify and reduce methane emissions from industrial and energy sources, and also provides valuable data to help us manage our natural and working lands for climate resiliency," explained Executive Officer Richard Corey with the California Air Resources Board (CARB). "CARB looks forward to providing a public platform for the greenhouse gas data and exploring how the land-use data can inform decisions on forest management, fire prevention and water quality."

The payload also includes two spacecraft with reentry vehicles as well as four orbital transfer vehicles carrying 41 of the payloads that will be fully deployed at a later time detailed SpaceX.

A live webcast of the launch will begin about 15 minutes before liftoff. You can tune in to watch here or on SpaceX's X/Twitter account.

Following first-stage separation, the booster assigned to this mission will return to Earth to land at Landing Zone 4 at Vandenberg SFB.

A depiction of that launch sequence is shown in the image below.

There is the potential for one or more sonic booms to be heard across the local region during the launch, but how far the sound travels will depend on weather and other conditions at launch time.

This will be the 25th flight for the Falcon 9 on this mission. The same booster previously launched the following missions:  USSF-62, OneWeb Launch 20, NROL-145, and 21 Starlink missions