SpaceX's newest spaceflight tech has to launched to the final frontier for the first time.
The company's Starfall capsule took to the skies on its debut mission today (June 23), following SpaceX's application with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for two reentry vehicle landings. The mission lifted off from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 6:52 a.m. EDT (1052 GMT).
Starfall is a cargo transportation vehicle designed to carry payloads to low Earth orbit (LEO) and beyond, aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, and also return materials safely back to Earth. The platform isn't designed to fly human passengers; it's geared toward the support of research or other payloads that require retrieval after a stint in space, such as pharmaceuticals and other products of orbital manufacturing.
The concept has already been put into practice by Varda Space, which has landed five of its 3-foot-wide (0.9 meters), roughly 650-pound (300 kilograms) conical "W-series" capsules to date, one of which returned a payload for the U.S. Air Force after more than eight weeks on orbit. Starfall is more than three times as large, measuring 10 feet (3.1 m) across and 2.5 feet (0.75 m) tall. The SpaceX vehicle can carry up to 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) of payload.
Starfall has two primary sections, which separate after reentry: a top plate for payload storage and attitude control components, and a carbon fiber heat shield that stores compressed gas to power attitude control maneuvers needed for precise reentries and landings, heat shield jettison and parachute deployment, according to SpaceX's FAA filing.
SpaceX plans to launch Starfall on suborbital missions, in addition to the longer-term stretches it will be able to spend in LEO. The capsule lacks a propulsion system and is incapable of deorbiting itself. The FAA document is unclear about how this will be accomplished, but it's likely that this launch will use Falcon 9's second stage to bring the demo capsule back to Earth.
In the event that Starfall experiences some sort of issue in space or during reentry, SpaceX has designed the spacecraft for safe expendability. "Capsules use nonhazardous inert cold gas (nitrogen) for attitude control and contain no liquid propellants or hazardous substances. All pressurized systems would be vented prior to splashdown, therefore, no propellants would be released into the ocean," the company says in the FAA document.
SpaceX has not yet specified how long it plans to keep the test Starfall vehicle in orbit on this debut mission, and did not broadcast views of the Falcon 9 second stage after separation from the rocket's booster. When the Starfall payload returns, SpaceX is targeting an area in the Pacific Ocean for splashdown, about 700 nautical miles (1,300 km) off the United States West Coast.
On the opposite side of the U.S., the Falcon 9 rocket that launched the Starfall demo mission headed for a return in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the 29th flight for this particular booster, tail number 1078, whose previous experience includes NASA's Crew-6 launch to the International Space Station, a Space Force mission and 23 Starlink launches, among others. Following stage separation, about 2.5 minutes after liftoff, Booster 1078 fine-tune its trajectory for a landing burn and touchdown on the SpaceX autonomous droneship "A Shortfall of Gravitas" downrange in the Atlantic, touching down about T+9 minutes.
Editor's note: This story was updated at 7:10 a.m. EDT to reflect the successful launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Starfall demonstration mission.