Picture delivering military gear or emergency humanitarian relief to anywhere in the world—in less than an hour. Not via plane, but rocket. Something that’s been the stuff of science fiction until now has a chance to become a reality, thanks to a revolutionary collaboration between the U.S. Air Force and SpaceX. The two are supported by a $102 million contract to investigate how rockets might transform worldwide cargo shipment.
A $102 Million Bet on Speed and Ingenuity
The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) entered into a five-year contract with SpaceX in 2022 to explore if commercial rockets might replace some of the heavy lifting traditionally performed by planes. The aim? To learn the real-world potential, economics, and logistical implications of employing rockets for point-to-point cargo shipping globally.
Greg Spanjers, program lead for the AFRL’s Rocket Cargo program, explains that the collaboration is not merely about rocket hardware testing. It’s about examining the whole system—its speed, how much material it can carry, and its adaptability—and determining whether it can be used in actual circumstances such as natural disasters or emergency military missions.
How Rocket Cargo Might Revolutionize Moving Supplies
Today, even the most capable cargo aircraft, such as the C-17, are constrained by range of flight, airport availability, and hours of flight. Rockets theoretically might be able to deliver more than 100 tons of gear or supplies anywhere on Earth in less than one hour—no airport or runway needed.
This “point-to-point” rocket shipping would enable cargo to be shipped from one location and delivered in a far-flung region on the opposite side of the globe, bypassing old infrastructure bottlenecks and geopolitical obstacles. The military is also considering how such rocket shipments might fit into a wider logistics network, utilizing containers that transition with ease between ships, trucks, planes, and rockets.
Big Ideas, Big Challenges
All that being said, the idea does have some fundamental problems. Most of the locations that would reap the most benefit from expediting the delivery of cargo—such as zones of disaster or far-off military bases—lack the infrastructure to bring a rocket in for a landing. Even dropping cargo into such environments safely is no trivial achievement.
Next are concerns regarding safety, affordability, and regulatory aspects. Rockets flying over settled areas or bringing supplies close to civilian regions create significant technical and logistical issues. The Air Force and SpaceX are investigating alternative routes, new landing methods, and other solutions, but have a long way to go before this becomes a daily reality.
Why SpaceX’s Starship Could Be the Game-Changer
A lot of the buzz about this program revolves around SpaceX’s Starship—the company’s next-generation, reusable rocket. Capable of lifting over 100 tons to orbit and designed for rapid turnaround, Starship might not only make rocket freight more than a possibility—it might make it efficient and economic.
SpaceX senior adviser Gary Henry admitted that the notion of rocket-based delivery might still seem futuristic. But, as he notes, people once thought reusable rockets were impossible too—and now launches of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are common practice. Starship, initially designed for missions to Mars, might wind up revolutionizing logistics on Earth.
A New Kind of Military-Commercial Partnership
Instead of acquiring its rocket fleet, the military prefers a system in which it just buys cargo delivery as a service. This way, the Department of Defense can take advantage of commercial innovation and scale, relying on the same launch vehicles built for commercial spaceflight.
U.S. Transportation Command is on board as well, trying to figure out how these systems could be connected to the broader military logistics system. The plan is to remain open to new developments, adapt to the technology, and be prepared when the capabilities are established.
What Comes Next?
No official date has yet been scheduled for a demonstration of the full-scale rocket cargo capability, but AFRL is already taking lessons from SpaceX’s commercial flights and feeding those lessons into its planning. If all goes according to plan—and Starship achieves its lofty targets—a test run with heavy cargo delivery could come as soon as 2026.
There’s still much to work out: how to safely land in chaotic conditions, how to keep cargo and human lives safe, and how to make it financially viable. But if the U.S. Air Force and SpaceX succeed, this undertaking may change the way we approach speed, logistics, and global disaster response. The age of rocket cargo may not be far off.
