Space Force Dreams of Using Rockets to Supply Warfighters.

• Author: Harper, Jon
• Position: SPACE

The Defense Department hopes to one day be able to use commercial rockets to rapidly transport cargo--and potentially troops--from point to point across the globe. While that might sound like a pipedream to some, experts say the concept is theoretically feasible, but many challenges must be overcome for it to be militarily viable.

The Air Force Research Laboratory in June designated its new Rocket Cargo effort a Vanguard program, making it a top science and technology priority.

"Logistics speed is at the heart of military supremacy," the lab said in a description of the program. "If a commercial company is in advanced development for a new capability to move materiel faster, then DoD needs to promptly engage and seek to be early adopters."

The goal is to be able to partner with commercial space companies to deliver up to 100 tons of supplies and equipment "anywhere on the planet on tactical timelines," AFRL Commander Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle told reporters.

The military envisions procuring this capability as a service rather than buying its own rockets.

The Air Force Research Lab expects to award several contracts to companies that can provide launch services and businesses that can advance other aspects of the logistics cycle such as loadmaster load/unload capability, rapid launch clearance, schedulers and environment survivability.

The lab is partnering with U.S. Transportation Command and the Space Force to assess the technology's potential, to include improvements in delivery cost and speed compared to air cargo operations. If it proves viable and affordable, the Space and Missile Systems Center will be responsible for transitioning the effort to a program of record.

Greg Spanjers, Rocket Cargo program manager, noted that this concept isn't new.

"It has always been an interesting, intriguing idea but... it has never really made sense in the past," he said. "What has frankly changed is a major emergence on the commercial side with much higher capability rockets at a much lower cost point than we're used to seeing. ... Reusability also brings down the cost per launch because we get to amortize the cost of the rocket over several launches."

Spanjers was once one of the "scoffers," but now "it looks like technology may have caught up with the good idea," he said.

While the initial focus will be on transporting cargo, some experts say it may be possible someday to deploy troops around the world via these types of systems.

"We're just going...