Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter SpaceX has just launched its mysterious return capsule “Starfall” for the second time in its history. Starfall was one of 32 payloads from the company’s Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission, which launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket at 7:04 a.m. EDT (1104 GMT) today (Oct. 20) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. SpaceX has been relatively quiet about Starfall. which debuted last June on a Falcon 9 launch from the Cape. Payloads from SpaceX’s Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission, seen in a pre-launch photo. The company’s Starfall capsule sits at the top of the stack. (Image credit: SpaceX) That June 23 flight was a demonstration mission dedicated to Starfall, designed to demonstrate that the capsule can fly in a controlled manner and survive the harrowing downward journey through Earth’s atmosphere. And those will be the main tasks of Starfall. The vehicle “will enable affordable, routine access to the microgravity environment for scientific research and manufacturing in space,” SpaceX said in a June 23 X post, one of the few public statements the company has made about Starfall. In fact, most of the details we have about the capsule come from an environmental assessment released by the US Federal Aviation Administration in May. According to that document, the disc-shaped Starfall measures approximately 2.5 feet (0.75 meters) tall and 10.2 feet (3.1 m) wide. It weighs about 4,600 pounds (2,100 kilograms) and can bring 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) of payload to Earth. Artist’s illustration of a SpaceX Starfall capsule reentering Earth’s atmosphere. (Image credit: SpaceX) Starfall wasn’t the only return capsule to board Bandwagon-5. Among the 31 other payloads on the flight was W-Series 7, the latest orbital “mini-factory” built and operated by California company Varda Space Industries. The W Series capsules are designed to host the production of valuable goods such as pharmaceuticals and bring them safely to Earth, Varda said. The other payloads on Bandwagon-5 are a mix of “cubesats and microsats,” according to SpaceX’s mission description. Among the latter is Pelican-12, a high-vision Earth observation satellite built by the San Francisco company Planet. What to read next The 32 payloads were deployed over a two-hour span, beginning approximately 57 minutes after launch. Starfall will be the last to separate, breaking free from the Falcon 9’s upper stage two hours and 48 minutes after liftoff. Meanwhile, the first stage of the Falcon 9 returned to Earth as planned on Bandwagon-5. It landed about nine minutes after launch, descending into the Atlantic Ocean atop the SpaceX unmanned ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas.” According to the company, it was the 19th mission for this particular booster. (Image credit: SpaceX) Bandwagon is one of SpaceX’s two ride-sharing programs. The other, known as Transporter, has been busier, flying 18 missions to date. The first Transporter mission, which lifted off in January 2021, delivered 143 payloads to Earth orbit, a single launch record that still stands.
