Factorio Forums

Normally, Space Age will remove the satellite, so there are no items with "rocket_launch_products" defined. I've defined a new one re-using the name "satellite" and with send_to_orbit_mode = "automated".
When you put it in the rocket silo, you are able to launch it to "Orbit" in addition to any space platforms:
Launching it manually to the space platform will send it to the platform as expected. Launching it to "Orbit" will not send it to any platform, and the payload will disappear and not return rocket_launch_products to the cargo landing pad.

Removing the space platforms leaves "Orbit" as the only launch destination with the same behaviour:
If I check "Send to orbit automatically" and place the satellite in the rocket, it will launch automatically, it will not go to any space platforms, and it does return the rocket_launch_products successfully to the cargo landing pad.
To make sure this isn't the result of any other mods I'm using, I tested the game using ONLY Space Age and a dummy mod which just adds the satellite item. You can also do this by commenting out Line 17 of __space-age__/base-data-updates.lua which removes the satellite.

I've had people report the same with my mod, several times, but haven't been able to do any testing with it since I don't own SA. My items are named "miner-module" or "miner-module-<resource name>" so it's not just with the name "satellite" apparently.

At least one person said it didn't work even with automatic checked, but that could've just been them making a mistake. It's possible they were confusing some of the items which do NOT use the rocket launch products mechanic.

Thanks for the report, this is fixed for the next release.