SpaceX's Starfall signs first customer with Space Cargo for 2028 Starship mission

SpaceX's Starfall capsule program has signed its first customer, Luxembourg-based integrator Space Cargo, for a 2028 reentry mission aboard Starship. Space Cargo will place its BentoBox system on the capsule to return up to 1 ton of payloads from orbit.

SpaceX's new Starfall business, which returns products and other payloads from Earth's orbit, has signed its first customer: European mission integrator Space Cargo, SpaceX Chief Executive Nicolas Gaume told Reuters.

Space Cargo aims to fly an orbital reentry flight in 2028 on the first commercial mission of Starship, which will deploy Starfall, a disk-shaped capsule designed to carry materials on short trips through orbit and back to Earth. Launched aboard Falcon 9 and eventually Starship, Starfall is an aluminium housing protected by a 10-foot (3-metre) wide heatshield that SpaceX offers to customers seeking to make products or conduct research in the microgravity of space.

Luxembourg-based Space Cargo will place its BentoBox system in the Starfall capsule, positioning itself as an integrator in the SpaceX program with plans to book more future missions. The box would secure up to 1 ton of different types of payloads from Space Cargo's own customers, allowing them to survive reentry and be safely returned to Earth for commercial use.

"We're flying 200 kilos with our current systems, but with Starship and Starfall, we're going to go to ton and tons of customer payloads, and that's really what we want," Gaume said.

The Space Cargo deal is the first known customer for Starfall, which emerged quickly earlier this year before demonstrating a capsule mission in June. The product's central capability is its heatshield, a commodification of SpaceX's experience ferrying its larger Dragon capsules between Earth and space mainly for NASA.

The first BentoBox on a Starfall capsule will be among payloads on SpaceX's first commercial mission with Starship, planned for 2028, Space Cargo said in a statement. SpaceX, which did not respond to a request for comment, has not previously said when Starship will fly its first commercial mission.

The emerging business of returning payloads from space is valuable for customers such as drugmakers relying on the microgravity of space for research and production involving purities impossible to attain in Earth's gravity. Nearly half of Space Cargo's potential customers for its first Starfall mission are in the life sciences and biotechnology sectors, the company said.

Starfall joins a growing industry of capsule reentry services, where SpaceX faces rivalry from smaller startups such as California-based Varda Space, whose flagship capsule has flown six missions and lands in an Australian desert. The Pentagon has seen capsule reentry missions as useful for research and tests involving hypersonic weapons and as potential target practice for its Golden Dome missile defense program.

Gaume said flying BentoBox with Starship and Starfall promises a fast pace of missions as SpaceX targets an unprecedented Starship flight rate once the rocket emerges from development. BentoBox also has plans to fly with other capsules, such as German startup ATMOS Space Cargo's Phoenix craft and the European Space Agency's Space Rider.

"It's really the volume and the rhythm that makes the Starfall deal key," added Gaume, who declined to detail pricing and costs. Starship is nearing routine flights but its development has been years behind schedule. Its next test flight sometime this year, the 14th since 2023, will seek to put its first SpaceX-built Starlink satellites in orbit.