Sidus Space Moves LizzieSat-5 To SpaceX Bandwagon-6, Aims Launch By April 2027

LizzieSat-5 will now fly on SpaceX’s Bandwagon-6 mission instead of its previously planned Transporter-18 launch, which was targeted for October 2026.

• The Bandwagon-6 mission will launch from Florida’s Space Coast, marking Sidus Space’s first launch from the same region where its satellites are built.
• LizzieSat-4 remains in production, while LizzieSat-5 has completed environmental testing and is awaiting final integration.
• Sidus said the Fortis qualification testing will evaluate the platform across mission and payload processing, spacecraft architecture, power and thermal requirements, form factor, and data handling.

Sidus Space (SIDU) said on Monday that LizzieSat-4 and LizzieSat-5 are aligned to launch together on SpaceX’s Bandwagon-6 rideshare mission, targeted for no earlier than April 2027.

SIDU shares traded over 0.9% lower, while SpaceX stock traded 0.98% lower at the time of writing on Monday.

The announcement changes the previously planned launch assignment for LizzieSat-5, which had been manifested on SpaceX’s Transporter-18 rideshare mission, with a target no earlier than October 2026.

Sidus said it moved LizzieSat-5 to Bandwagon-6 to expand qualification testing of its Fortis VPX-Maxima platform. “Expanding the Fortis qualification campaign lets us characterize the platform against a larger set of mission requirements in a single test window rather than repeating the effort vehicle by vehicle,” said Patrick Butler, Chief Operating Officer of Sidus Space.

What Changes With Bandwagon-6?

Bandwagon-6 will launch from Florida’s Space Coast, marking the first Sidus mission to launch from the same coast where its satellites are built. Both spacecraft will move directly from Sidus’ Cape Canaveral manufacturing, assembly, integration and testing facility to the launch site, according to the company.

The mission will place LizzieSat-4 and LizzieSat-5 into a mid-inclination orbit. Sidus said this will provide more frequent revisit over mid-latitude regions compared with the sun-synchronous profile previously planned for LizzieSat-5.

LizzieSat-4 And LizzieSat-5 Payloads

LizzieSat-4 is currently in production and will proceed to environmental testing. The spacecraft will carry hosted payloads from Solar MEMS, Lonestar, and Maris-Tech.

LizzieSat-5 has completed environmental testing, including vibration testing at Element U.S. Space & Defense in Orlando, Florida, and is awaiting final integration. The spacecraft will carry a hosted payload from The Netherlands Organization (TNO).

Both spacecraft will also carry a Simera Sense HyperScape-100 imager and Satlabs Polaris AIS receiver as part of Sidus’ payload suite.

Sidus Expands Fortis Qualification Testing

The company said the testing will assess Fortis against system-level, mission and payload processing requirements, spacecraft bus architecture, power and thermal budgets, form-factor constraints and data-handling architecture.

“We made a deliberate choice to complete the additional testing on the ground rather than discover a gap on orbit,” said Carol Craig, Founder, CEO and Chairman of Sidus Space.

Sidus said the Bandwagon-6 launch timing will depend on the outcome of qualification testing, spacecraft integration, and launch vehicle and rideshare mission readiness.

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around SIDU was in ‘Extremely Bullish’ territory over the past 24 hours, with message volume at ‘High’ levels. Meanwhile, sentiment around SPCX remained ‘Neutral’, with message volume at ‘Normal’ levels. SPCX was also among the trending tickers on Stocktwits at the time of writing.

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