A satellite dispenser is a space tug usually released from the upper stage (sometimes called kick stage) of a rocket and designed to fly small secondary payloads to their desired location before deploying them.
Project West Ford launched 480,000,000 needles in space in 1961 and 1963 using a dispenser.
[2] SHERPA is a satellite dispenser first launched on 3 December 2018 on a rideshare mission called SSO-A: SmallSat Express.
The two SHERPA dispensers placed 64 satellites, after separating from the Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket once it entered a polar Sun-synchronous orbit around 575 kilometers above Earth.
[6][7][8] ION CubeSat Carrier is a satellite dispenser launched on 3 September 2020 on a Vega rocket, mission Vega flight VV16, and carried 12 SuperDove satellites from Planet Labs.