Anduril, Blue Origin To Study How To Transport Cargo From Orbit To Earth For The Pentagon

Anduril’s statement is particularly intriguing and suggests nan defense startup is making forays into an wholly caller business line.

The 2 awards autumn nether nan U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Rocket Experimentation for Global Agile Logistics (REGAL) program. Blue Origin did not respond to TechCrunch’s petition for comment, and an Anduril spokesperson directed TechCrunch to AFRL.

REGAL is nan experimentation limb of AFRL’s larger Rocket Cargo program, which is focused connected “delivery arsenic a service” via orbital transport. The Air Force wants to procure these capabilities via service-type contracts, akin to really nan DoD contracts commercialized airlines. The purpose of nan REGAL programme is to beryllium retired commercial, reusable rockets, reentry systems, and cargo proscription systems to alteration deliveries to distant aliases hard-to-reach theaters successful little than an hour.

While location isn’t overmuch nationalist accusation astir REGAL’s scope of activity aliases timeline, nan requests for proposals that underly nan awards incorporate immoderate absorbing information.

Blue’s contract, according to nan sparse grant listing, is for an study of really its tech could support “point-to-point worldly transportation.” The listed spot of capacity is Merritt Island, Florida, Blue’s location connected nan Space Coast and wherever it is processing nan heavy-lift New Glenn rocket.

Anduril’s creation study contract, which besides falls nether REGAL, was awarded nether a abstracted telephone for proposals called “Payload Rentry from Space Development and Demonstrations.”

Cutting done nan jargon, nan connection implies Anduril will study really to create a reentry instrumentality that tin transportation betwixt 5 tons to 10 tons of payload from Earth and back. The listing, which tin beryllium viewed on SAM.gov, emphasized that nan instrumentality needs to activity pinch different rocks and nan study should propose a thermal protection system. Anduril’s “payload container,” arsenic nan listing calls it, should merge aggregate government-defined payloads and activity crossed platforms.

Reentry is simply a notoriously difficult problem to lick successful spaceflight. Developing materials that tin past atmospheric reentry, and a instrumentality that doesn’t wholly destruct nan contents involved, is simply a challenge. A fistful of startups, for illustration Varda Space Industries, person developed reentry capsules for in-space manufacturing, and SpaceX’s Dragon capsule brings backmost cargo and astronauts from nan ISS. But overall, nan number of vendors that tin present this capacity is limited.

The news of nan 2 contracts, which haven’t been reported, follows connected Rocket Lab’s ain REGAL statement that was announced earlier this year. That statement explicitly has a formation objection step, though AFRL hasn’t released different specifications connected that award, for illustration nan amount.

If rocket cargo services mature, nan Pentagon could bargain “delivery arsenic a service,” pinch monolithic loads riding a commercialized dense rocket and returning to Earth wrong a capsule for speedy offload. Long term, AFRL said nan programme could moreover see point-to-point proscription of humans.