SpaceX Transporter-18 lifts off with India’s MOI-1A orbital computer
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 departed Vandenberg at 2:32 p.m. ET Thursday carrying 130 payloads, including TakeMe2Space’s MOI-1A. The reusable first stage returned to Landing Zone 4 about 7.5 minutes after liftoff. Space.com and Quartz independently confirm both the launch and the booster landing.
SpaceX’s Transporter-18 rideshare left Vandenberg Space Force Base on Thursday afternoon with India’s TakeMe2Space MOI-1A orbital-computing satellite among 130 small payloads. Space.com reported liftoff at 2:32 p.m. ET (11:32 a.m. Pacific) and said the Falcon 9 first stage landed at Landing Zone 4 about seven and a half minutes later. Quartz also reported a successful departure and booster landing, noting Google’s Project Suncatcher AI-chip pathfinder on the same flight. Next Spaceflight logged the mission as a launch success at 18:32 UTC.
MOI-1A is billed as India’s first dedicated orbital-computing satellite. The craft weighs under 50 kilograms and uses Nvidia Orin NX chips so it can run AI models in orbit and send home processed results instead of huge raw sensor dumps. TakeMe2Space rebuilt the mission after an earlier MOI-1 payload was lost when ISRO’s PSLV-C62 failed in January. Booking SpaceX kept customer timelines on track after that setback, India Today reported before the window opened.
Backstory: SpaceX’s Transporter series packs dozens of cubesats into sun-synchronous orbits. Thursday’s stack also carried Google’s first in-orbit TPU test and other AI and servicing demos. Payload deployments were set to begin about 54 minutes after liftoff and run for roughly 11 minutes. Desks have confirmed the rocket succeeded. A public MOI-1A beacon or first processing run has not been posted yet. Watch SpaceX’s Transporter-18 page and TakeMe2Space updates for commissioning news. Outlets agree Falcon 9 delivered the rideshare. They still differ on how soon orbital AI can beat ground processing on cost and reliability.
Where outlets agree Space.com and Quartz agree Transporter-18 lifted off from Vandenberg on Thursday and that the Falcon 9 first stage landed back at the base about 7.5 minutes later.
Where they differ Desks agree the rocket succeeded. How soon MOI-1A proves commercial on-orbit AI — versus radiation, power, and sales hurdles — remains unresolved.