Azernews.Az

by Alimat Aliyeva

American company SpaceX has received approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to begin testing a new “Starfall” return capsule designed to deliver cargo from space back to Earth, AzerNEWS reports.

At the initial stage, the regulator authorized two test launches of the vehicle, followed by ocean landings in the Pacific, approximately 1,300 kilometers off the coast of California. The company has also been granted permission to conduct suborbital capsule tests as part of the broader Starship flight program.

According to official documents, Starfall is a compact re-entry capsule measuring about 3.1 meters in diameter and 0.75 meters in height, with a mass of roughly 2.1 tons. It is capable of returning up to one ton of payload to Earth. Cold-gas thrusters will be used for attitude control during flight, while a combination of main and braking parachutes will ensure a controlled and safe descent. After landing, the capsule will be recovered by specialized SpaceX vessels.

The main goal of the project is to advance technologies for orbital manufacturing. The idea is to send equipment or materials into space to operate in microgravity and vacuum conditions, where unique products can be created and later returned to Earth. Such capabilities could be particularly valuable in fields like advanced materials science, crystal growth, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals.

In addition, SpaceX is considering Starfall as a potential system for ultra-fast point-to-point cargo delivery across the Earth using suborbital trajectories. Such technology has also attracted interest from the U.S. military due to its potential strategic applications.

Interestingly, similar concepts are already being explored by companies like Varda Space Industries, which has successfully returned capsules containing materials manufactured in orbit. This emerging market could eventually become a new space logistics industry, where products are not only launched into space—but also manufactured and shipped back as part of a continuous orbital supply chain.

If the Starfall project proves successful, SpaceX could become one of the key players in the growing field of reusable return spacecraft, opening the door to a new era of commercial space-based production and rapid global delivery systems.

One particularly intriguing possibility mentioned by analysts is that, in the future, such capsules might not only return scientific payloads but also time-sensitive medical materials, such as lab-grown tissues or personalized pharmaceuticals, produced in orbit and delivered to Earth within hours.