SpaceX's fiery Falcon 9 comes in for a landing photo of the day for Nov. 7, 2025

A rocket blazes up into a night time sky with glowing orange clouds of smoke illuminated by the tail of the rocket in the night

The first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket comes down for a landing. (Image credit: SpaceX)

Early in the morning of Nov. 2 , 2025, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket roared off its pad at the Space Launch Complex in Cape Canaveral, carrying the dedicated rideshare mission known as Bandwagon-4 into orbit.

Aboard were 18 payloads, some of them experimental technologies and others satellites, all heading for low Earth orbit. And, like most SpaceX missions, this one featured a rocket landing, which is highlighted above.

What is it?

Bandwagon is one of SpaceX's two satellite-rideshare programs, along with Transporter. As its name suggests, Bandwagon-4 was the fourth mission in the program, and according to the manifest, it successfully delivered 18 payloads to their target orbits.

Where is it?

This image was taken at Landing Zone 2 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, where the Falcon 9 first stage touched down on Nov. 2.

Why is it amazing?

Rideshare programs make access to space more affordable to various stakeholders that may not be able to afford a dedicated launch, such as universities and start-ups.

These groups can add their experiments and technology to the Falcon 9 rocket — payloads such as Vast's Haven Demo, a pathfinder for Haven-1, a private space station. The successful launch of Bandwagon-4 marks a key step in making space more accessible as humanity continues to look to the stars.

And rocket landings, which SpaceX has made routine over the past decade or so, are amazing in their own right: They help decrease the costs of spaceflight and allow more rockets to get off the pad in a timely fashion.

Want to learn more?

You can learn more about rideshare missions and SpaceX's work.

Kenna Hughes-Castleberry is the Content Manager at Space.com. Formerly, she was the Science Communicator at JILA, a physics research institute. Kenna is also a freelance science journalist. Her beats include quantum technology, AI, animal intelligence, corvids, and cephalopods.

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