Wright-Patt Lab Flies Cargo on a SpaceX Reentry Capsule
The Air Force Research Laboratory put medical gear, survival equipment and electronics aboard SpaceX's Starfall capsule to test rocket delivery for military logistics.
The Air Force Research Laboratory, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, sent cargo to orbit aboard a SpaceX reentry capsule this week. The flight was a test of whether rockets could someday move military supplies around the world, the Dayton Daily News reported Oct. 23.
The cargo flew on SpaceX's Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission, which lifted off Tuesday, Oct. 20. AFRL's pods rode inside Starfall, a SpaceX capsule built to bring payloads back to Earth, according to the newspaper.
What was on board
The pods carried medical equipment, survival gear, batteries, electronics, a satellite communications tracker and other items, the Daily News reported. AFRL researchers focused on the electronics and survival gear, including the SATCOM-enabled tracker, the batteries, a reverse-osmosis desalinator and the medical equipment.
The test is part of Rocket Cargo, an AFRL research project studying whether large commercial liquid-fueled rockets can deliver materiel quickly to any point on the globe.
"Any day you launch a rocket is a good day, but today was more than just another big rocket launch," Brig. Gen. Douglas Wickert, AFRL's commander, said in a statement quoted by the Daily News. He said the launch showed AFRL "partnering with industry to burn down risk."
Adam Remaly, director of AFRL's Technology Transition Office, called it "a critical achievement to demonstrate the potential of Rocket Cargo delivery," the newspaper reported.
AFRL said it "continues to assess rocket and reentry capsule capabilities across the commercial vendor base" as it looks at ways to move critical materiel quickly around the world.
The launch
The Falcon 9 rocket launched at 7:04 a.m. EDT on Oct. 20 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, Space.com reported. It carried 32 payloads in all.
Starfall sat at the top of the payload stack and was the last to separate, about 2 hours and 48 minutes after liftoff, according to Space.com. The disk-shaped capsule is about 10 feet wide, weighs about 4,600 pounds and can return about 2,200 pounds of payload. It was making its second flight after a dedicated demonstration launch June 23.
The rocket's first stage landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic about nine minutes after launch, Space.com reported. It was that booster's 19th flight.
Neither report said whether Starfall and the AFRL pods had been recovered.