SpaceX, Blue Origin and XArc. How the Pentagon studies rocket freight transport
The U.S. military is a small development program that wants to leverage reusable rockets, like the ones SpaceX is building, to quickly deliver cargo anywhere in the world.
The Pentagon is working on a development program that wants to leverage reusable rockets to quickly deliver goods anywhere in the world.
Called Rocket Cargo, the logistics program aims to deliver up to 100 tons of cargo and potentially people anywhere in the world within one hour. This was announced by the US Air Force Department last June.
The program will attempt to develop capabilities such as "rocket landing on a wide range of non-traditional materials and surfaces", engineering a "rocket cargo bay, and logistics for rapid loading and unloading" for serving places where an airplane cannot land.
The Air Force's proposed budget for 2022 is nearly $ 50 million to continue studio work that began last year with small contracts with SpaceX and the Exploration Architecture Corporation (XArc). SpaceX is in fact testing Starship, a mega-rocket for heavy loads under development that plans to be reused.
And at the end of 2021, Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by Jeff Bezos , also joined .
All the details.
WHAT IS THE USA ROCKET CARGO PROGRAM FOR ROCKET CARGO TRANSPORT
The delivery of goods via rocket transport is not a new concept.
Until a few years ago, the prohibitive high launch costs for a logistics-centric application and the relatively small payload capacity constrained the types of cargo that could be delivered.
But today, several commercial companies are generating new opportunities by developing large rockets and reusable stages that land safely on earth, expanding cargo capacity and dramatically reducing launch costs.
The Rocket Cargo program, directed by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the United States Space Force, together with the United States Transportation Command (Us Transcom). The latter oversees global military logistics operations.
Point-to-point space travel is a form of transportation, in which a rocket would launch into space and then return to another location, hypothetically making it capable of carrying supplies or possibly people from one side of the Earth to the other.
THE AGREEMENTS SIGNED WITH SPACEX AND XARC IN 2020
And private aerospace companies have shown interest in being involved in this project.
In March 2020, Us Transcom signed a Crada (cooperative research and development agreements) with SpaceX in to examine the exploitation of the company's commercial space transport technologies. The goal is to accelerate the delivery of Defense Department material and troops around the world. In April 2020, it signed a Crada with the space consulting firm Exploration Architecture Corporation (XArc), to advise the command on the requirements for the use of commercial spaceports.
As Space.news explains, with the Crada agreements, companies agree to share information about their products and capabilities, but the government is not committed to buying anything.
AND THE ONE ASSIGNED TO BLUE ORIGIN IN 2021
Finally, Blue Origin also signed a Crada agreement with Us Transcom for the Rocket cargo program last December.
Jeff Bezos' company operates a New Shepard suborbital reusable launch vehicle for space tourism. It is also developing a heavy-duty orbital launch vehicle called the New Glenn with a reusable first stage.
New Glenn's debut flight is scheduled for late 2022.
AT WHAT POINT IS SPACEX STARSHIP
Elon Musk's company is also yet to reach orbit with the Starship rocket .
So far SpaceX has only tested Starship prototypes at its facility in Texas. The latest high-altitude flight test last May was the first that ended without the prototype exploding.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/spacex-blue-origin-e-xarc-come-il-pentagono-studia-un-trasporto-merci-via-razzi/ on Sun, 23 Jan 2022 14:33:08 +0000.