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Usually, a SpaceX test flight of a brand new spacecraft is accompanied with bellowing fanfare. Thousands of people tune into high-definition livestreams, watching as the drama — and fireworks — unfurl across the sky.
But just less than two weeks after its blockbuster IPO, Elon Musk’s rocket company has chosen to keep its latest prototype test launch under tight wraps. Why? Very likely because the military is involved.
In the early morning hours of Tuesday, a Falcon 9 rocket launched a flying saucer-shaped reentry capsule, dubbed Starfall, from the Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral. But despite a brief livestream of the initial launch, we never got to watch the upper stage reach space, as is the case for most of the company’s other launches, shrouding the most critical parts of the mission in secrecy.
While we don’t have official confirmation that Skyfall is meant to carry weapons and supplies for the military, the Pentagon has long expressed interest in the idea. SpaceX also has plenty of existing contracts with the Defense Department, including one known as Project Cargo, which would involve the space company’s much larger Starship rocket delivering supplies around the globe.
On paper, the squat ten-feet-across and two-feet-tall puck is designed to both help private partners develop vehicles for in-space manufacturing and deliver goods anywhere on the globe in the shortest time possible. The main reason we know this is because of a Federal Aviation Administration environmental assessment from last month, as SpaceNews points out.
“SpaceX has developed a new spacecraft called Starfall, which is, at its core, a microgravity lab that researchers and entrepreneurs can leverage to develop their products and innovations,” a host of a brief SpaceX webcast said. “There is a huge opportunity to benefit life on Earth through microgravity research and in-space manufacturing.”
“Deployment of Starfall confirmed,” SpaceX vague-posted after the launch and before the capsule presumably plunged into the Pacific Ocean. SpaceX did not share if Starfall survived its reentry or whether it was recovered.
In short, it’s an unusually secretive mission for SpaceX, particularly following its massive Wall Street debut earlier this month. We don’t know when the next test flight will occur or when commercial partners will have an opportunity to rideshare, further lending credence to the theory that the military could soon be using Skyfall to dropship weapons and munitions across the globe.
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