dailyloe.com – SpaceX plans to launch 45 satellites into orbit from California on May 3, 2023. The event is scheduled for early Sunday morning at 2:59 a.m. EDT (0659 GMT; 11:59 p.m. PDT on May 2).
A Falcon 9 rocket will lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base during a 37-minute launch window. The launch will be streamed live via SpaceX’s website and X account, starting 15 minutes before liftoff.
The mission, named CAS500-2, features the primary payload, the CAS500-2 Earth-observation satellite. This satellite was developed by the Korean Aerospace Research Institute as part of South Korea’s CAS500 program.
The CAS500 program aims to operate a total of five satellites in low Earth orbit for various purposes, including disaster monitoring and crop observation. So far, two satellites have been successfully launched.
CAS500-1 was launched aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket in March 2021, and CAS500-3 followed on a South Korean Nuri vehicle in November 2025. CAS500-2 was initially scheduled for a Soyuz launch in 2022 but was delayed due to geopolitical issues stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The launch will also carry 44 other satellites from various operators, including Argotec S.r.l, Exolaunch, Impulso.Space, Loft-EarthDaily, Lynk Global, True Anomaly, and Planet Labs. This diversity of payloads showcases the collaborative nature of space endeavors.
If the launch proceeds as planned, the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket will return to land at Vandenberg approximately 7.5 minutes after liftoff. This will mark the 33rd launch and touchdown of this particular booster, designated B1071.
This launch will bring B1071 within one of the company’s reuse records, which was previously set during a Starlink broadband-satellite launch in late March. The CAS500-2 satellite will deploy from the Falcon 9’s upper stage about 60 minutes post-liftoff, with other payloads following over the next hour and a half.
