Will Robinson-Smith File: A Falcon 9 stands ready for the Starlink 8-10 mission at Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now. An Nvidia-backed data center demo, a testbed for Vast’s future commercial space station and artificial intelligence-powered weather satellites are among the spacecraft flying on SpaceX’s latest Bandwagon ride share mission to low Earth orbit. Bandwagon-4, is the fourth multi-customer flight to a mid-inclination orbit and the 18th mission as part of SpaceX’s small sat ride share program, which also includes the Transporter series, going to higher inclinations. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is set for 1:09:59 a.m. EDT (0509:59 UTC). Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about an hour prior to liftoff.  The 45th Weather Squadron forecast a 95 percent chance for favorable weather at liftoff with just a small chance for interference from cumulus clouds. The mission will use Falcon 9 first stage booster B1091, which previously launched two batches of satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper and will eventually fly as a center booster for a Falcon Heavy rocket. Less than eight minutes after liftoff, B1091 will target a touchdown at Landing Zone 2, at Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 13. It is likely to be the last booster to return to LZ-2 as SpaceX is about to transition to a new landing zone at pad 40. The company has already retired Landing Zone 1 as the Space Force prepares to hand over LC-13 to new commercial launch providers Phantom Space and Vaya Space. It will be the 15th landing at LZ-2 and the 528th Falcon 9 booster landing to date. SpaceX’s design for the Bandwagon series of smallsat ride share missions. Graphic: SpaceX What’s onboard? The primary payload at the top of the stack, referred to as the “cake topper” in SpaceX ride share documents, is the fifth 425 Korea satellite from South Korea’s Agency for Defense Development (ADD). Because of the presence of these sensitive military satellites on each of the previous three Bandwagon missions, SpaceX has ended it’s live launch coverage before the payload deployments. In 2018, Thales Alenia Space signed contracts with two South Korean companies, Aerospace Industries and Hanwha Systems Corporation, to develop four synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites for the Korea 425 Project constellation. The fifth satellite in the reconnaissance constellation was an electromagnetic and infrared satellite that launched back in December 2023 on another Falcon 9 rocket. This final SAR satellite is set to deploy about 12 minutes after liftoff. The Falcon 9 rocket’s upper stage will then perform two more burns of its Merlin Vacuum engine, lasting one second each, before beginning the deployment sequence for the remaining 17 spacecraft. An artists’ rendering of two Korea 425 Project satellites in low Earth orbit. Graphic: Thales Alenia Space Among those satellites is Vast’s Haven Demo. The California-based company is using the mission to test out a number of systems, like navigation software, propulsion and flight computers that will be used on its first commercial space station, Haven-1. Vast is aiming to launch its Haven-1 no earlier than May 2026 and will host a four-member crew of astronauts for a roughly two-week-long mission. Those astronauts have not yet been announced. Haven Demo build and test are complete, and it is now undergoing final integration for launch. Meanwhile, we’re moving toward critical systems testing and continuing to build momentum on Haven-1 flight hardware. Haven-1’s primary structure qualification article has successfully… pic.twitter.com/ATJ6Bryhde