A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Bandwagon-3 payload lifts off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on April 21, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX just sent a pioneering European capsule to the final frontier.
A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida today (April 21) at 8:48 p.m. EDT (0048 GMT on April 22), on a rideshare mission that SpaceX calls Bandwagon-3.
Among the payloads riding the Falcon 9 is Phoenix 1, a reentry capsule built by German company Atmos Space Cargo. If all goes to plan, Phoenix 1 will come back to Earth soon, splashing down in the Atlantic about 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) off the coast of Brazil after a single circuit of our planet. It’s the first reentry mission ever conducted by a European company, according to Atmos.
The first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is seen returning to land after launching the Bandwagon-3 payload on April 21, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)
The goal is to test the Phoenix system’s inflatable heat shield and other core technology, showing the craft can safely bring valuable cargo from space to Earth — something Atmos plans to do for a variety of customers in the near future.
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“Our mission is to revolutionize space logistics, enabling groundbreaking advancements in microgravity research, in-orbit manufacturing, defense applications and life sciences,” the company’s website reads.
Bandwagon-3 is a rideshare mission, so Phoenix 1 wasn’t alone on the Falcon 9. Also going up today were 425Sat-3, which will be operated by South Korea’s Agency for Defense Development, and Tomorrow-S7, a satellite for the weather-forecasting outfit Tomorrow Companies Inc.
The Bandwagon series, whose first two missions launched in April 2024 and December 2024, isn’t SpaceX’s only rideshare line.
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Elon Musk‘s company also operates a program called Transporter, which has 13 missions under its belt to date. The first Transporter flight sent 143 satellites to orbit in January 2021, a single-launch record that still stands.
