The US Air Force Research Laboratory has tested the use of commercial rockets to deliver cargo anywhere on Earth, flying instrumented cargo pods aboard a SpaceX reentry capsule on a launch from Cape Canaveral.
The test, part of the laboratory’s Rocket Cargo project, used a SpaceX Starfall capsule fitted with instrumentation to measure the temperature, shock and vibration of the cargo environment during launch and reentry.
Rocket Cargo is an Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) research effort to determine whether large commercial liquid-propellant rockets can rapidly deliver materiel anywhere on the globe on tactical timelines, a concept it calls point-to-point delivery (P2D).
The capsule carried AFRL-developed “agile cargo pods” designed to host different loads, each containing representative mission equipment and environmental sensors to assess payload integrity. Researchers focused on electronics and survival gear, including a satellite-communications (SATCOM) tracker, batteries, a reverse-osmosis desalinator and emergency medical equipment.
Engineers also carried out a fit check of a UNI-PAC III life raft inside the Starfall capsule for possible use in future tests.
Brigadier General Douglas Wickert, AFRL commander and the Department of the Air Force’s technology executive officer, said, “The launch was another demonstration of how AFRL is partnering with industry to burn down risk, collect hard data and deliver war-winning technologies for the operational force.”
A key difference between Rocket Cargo and other rapid-delivery efforts is a total cargo capacity of tens of tons per launch. The Air Force says that could one day support rapid global mobility to contested environments and austere sites without runways or roads, including for expeditionary operations, rescue, disaster relief and response to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) hazards.
Adam Remaly, director of the AFRL Technology Transition Office, said, “This was a critical achievement to demonstrate the potential of Rocket Cargo delivery for point-to-point rapid global mobility for the Future Force. The cross-discipline collaborations and ability to unleash the speed of our defense industrial base are key to maximizing capability and winning the future.”
AFRL said iterative testing will support the eventual delivery of cargo at speed and scale, and that it is working with commercial vendors including SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Sierra Space, Anduril, Inversion Space and Outpost Space. It is also exploring commercial capsule reentry technologies for in-space manufacturing.
