Elon Musk officially has a ride-share business.
His rocket company SpaceX introduced Monday the SmallSat Rideshare program, which uses regularly scheduled Falcon 9 missions to carry payloads up to 150 kg for as low as $2.25 million per customer.
“Unlike traditional rideshare opportunities, these missions will not be dependent on a primary,” a webpage for the program says. “These missions will be pre-scheduled and will not be held up by delays with co-passengers.
“For payloads who run into development or production challenges leading up to launch, SpaceX will allow them to apply 100% of monies paid towards the cost of rebooking on a subsequent mission (rebooking fees may apply).”
SpaceX has already booked three missions for the Falcon 9 SmallSat Rideshare program to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The first is scheduled to launch between November 2020 and March 2021. Dates for the next two missions have not been announced.
The SmallSat Rideshare program is now SpaceX’s lowest-cost program to date, which will attract a new customer set for the company. The program will be leveraging SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which has has proven to bring down the cost of missions with a reusable booster.