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SpaceX Flies Starfall Capsule Again in Air Force Rocket Cargo Test

The mission advances validation of routine payload return for orbital manufacturing by carrying Air Force instrumented cargo pods to measure heat, shock and vibration during launch and reentry.

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The Falcon 9 rocket taking off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, on Oct. 20, 2026. Inset: the demonstrator agile cargo pod. (Image credit: SpaceX, edited by The Aviationist)
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Overview

  • The disk-shaped Starfall capsule completed its second flight on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, as one of 32 payloads on SpaceX’s Bandwagon-5 Falcon 9 rideshare from Cape Canaveral.
  • Federal Aviation Administration filings describe Starfall as about 10.2 feet across, 2.5 feet tall, weighing roughly 4,600 pounds and able to return up to about 1,000 kg of cargo to Earth.
  • The Air Force Research Laboratory placed instrumented cargo pods inside Starfall to record temperature, shock and vibration for Rocket Cargo research, and those pods included survival gear, medical equipment, batteries and trackers.
  • SpaceX disclosed little about the capsule’s exact contents or its planned recovery location, while the Falcon 9 first stage returned to the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas on its 19th flight.
  • The flight advances commercial sample-return and in-space manufacturing tests and supplies AFRL with data for evaluating rapid rocket-based logistics, though questions remain about recovery performance, cost, scale and operational cadence.