SpaceX just helped the U.S. Air Force test an entirely new kind of global logistics 🇺🇸 The October 20 Bandwagon-5 mission carried Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) cargo pods inside SpaceX's Starfall reentry capsule Inside were: • Emergency medical equipment • Survival gear • Batteries + electronics • Satellite communications tracker • Water desalination equipment The test used sensors to measure how the cargo handles the extreme conditions of launch and reentry And the bigger goal is use rockets to rapidly deliver critical supplies anywhere in the world for military resupply, rescue operations and disaster relief, even where roads and runways are unavailable SpaceX is helping turn spaceflight into an entirely new form of global logistics

Varda Space Industries Successfully Reenters W-6, Validating Autonomous Navigation and Advanced Thermal Protection Systems The capsule landed safely within the designated recovery zone at the Koonibba Test Range in South Australia, operated by Southern Launch, marking the company's second reentry of 2026. Similar to Varda's previous missions with Department of War payloads, the W-6 mission was funded through the Prometheus program, a partnership between the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and commercial space entities, which is addressing a national security need to accelerate novel science and technology experiments in the extreme hypersonic reentry environment through a low-cost, high-cadence flight testbed.