We witness a rapid growth in Smallsats to be launched, mainly driven by the planned new constellations such as Starlink, OneWeb, Telesat Lightspeed, and Kuiper. However, there is also a demand for individual launches in specific orbits. According to forecasts, the number of Smallsats to be launched over the next decade is estimated to be around 1,400 yearly, hence an important market. To launch a Smallsat (in general defined as a satellite with a mass of less than 600 kg), there are several options available. One can launch such satellite as a secondary payload of a bigger satellite (also called piggyback), one can launch the satellites in grouped batches (rideshare), or one can use a dedicated launcher. Each of these solutions has different strengths and weaknesses, which will be detailed in this article. Therefore, each launch of a Smallsat will require a trade-off between the different possibilities and the main prerequisites of the specific launch. To assist in this process, a decision tree is proposed in this article.
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