The U.S. Air Force wants to transport cargo around the world in space. The United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) signed an agreement with Rocket Lab that could allow it to deliver cargo to different locations on Earth. The Photon rocket is being considered as a platform for on-orbit cargo depots and as a delivery re-entries vehicle.
Peter Beck said in a statement that point-to-point space transportation offers a new ability to move equipment quickly around the world.
The Electron rocket has flown 29 times and is capable of carrying up to 13 tons of cargo. The company launched NASA's CAPSTONE mission to the moon.
The U.S. Air Force plans to use space launch vehicles to deliver material and personnel across the globe within hours. The Air Force wants to do that using commercial rockets, having already signed a similar deal with SpaceX earlier this year worth $102 million, and Signing Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to a deal late last year.
Sierra Space is the other company that has signed on for the project. The Dream Chaser spaceplane, which is still being developed, will be used by the U.S. Air Force for point to point transportation.
Jamie Malak, the project lead at the Air Force Research Laboratory, said that US TransCOM and its global Combatant Command customers have been constrained to logistics at the speed of conventional aircraft. We can now move critical military cargo fast.
The idea of using space launch vehicles to transport cargo has been around for a while, but the recent development in commercial spaceflight was the push needed to take the project off the ground. It looks like the technology may have caught up with a good idea, which is why we are doing it now.
The first private mission to Venus was launched by the rocket lab.
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