SpaceX is poised to fire off a fresh Falcon 9 rocket on Thursday, delivering a comically tiny payload for Taiwan’s National Space Organization. At 1,047 pounds, the Formosat-5 Earth-observing satellite is almost light enough for a human to deadlift—but it’ll launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket with 50 times more capacity. The overkill is thanks to a years-long delay, and SpaceX will take a substantial financial hit to make good on a contract it signed in 2010.

Elon Musk’s space flight company will attempt to launch the rocket from Vandenberg Air Force base in California during a 42-minute window opening at 11:51 am PDT on Thursday. The satellite is bound for heliosynchronous orbit, where it will pass over Taiwan every two days for data retrieval. After the lightest single payload to ever hitch a ride on a Falcon 9 separates, the booster will fly back for a drone ship landing—hopefully to be reused in future, more economically viable missions.

The Formosat-5 is Taiwan’s first satellite designed and built entirely with the nation’s resources. More than 50 teams from across the country built it to facilitate academic research, disaster prevention, and humanitarian assistance. Originally, the sat was supposed to fly on SpaceX’s Falcon 1e, an upgraded version of its first orbital-class Falcon 1 rocket with a lift capability of 2,200 pounds. And according to industry analysis site Space Intel Report, they paid $23 million for the privilege—compared to the typical $62 million for a commercial Falcon 9 launch today.

So how did Taiwan hitch a discounted ride on a Falcon 9? Delay after delay. SpaceX hoped to deliver Formosat-5 as early as 2013 by launching the small-lift vehicle from a pad on Omelek Island in the military-controlled Kwajalein Atoll southwest of Hawaii. But because of low demand, the company scrapped the single-engine Falcon 1e in the summer of 2011, refocusing its efforts on developing new versions of the Falcon 9. Regardless of how SpaceX launches Formosat-5, the price remains firm for the customer.

After the Formosat-5 mission was moved to the Falcon 9, SpaceX targeted its launch for 2015, searching for another paying customer to share space onboard. Launch middleman Spaceflight was in talks with SpaceX to fly its Sherpa rideshare spacecraft on the mission. The Sherpa is a tow vehicle and deployment system for smaller, privately owned satellites; Spaceflight would have flown 90 of them, many from Earth-imaging company Planet, on the Formosat-5 mission.