SpaceX launches Starfall capsule for return to Earth for second time — Space.com

On October 20, SpaceX launched the Starfall capsule for its return to Earth for the second time aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from the U.S. Space Force station at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Starfall was one of 32 payloads on the Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission, which lifted off at 7:04 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time, or 11:04 GMT.

Starfall’s second mission

As Space.com reports, Starfall’s first flight took place on June 23. It was a separate demonstration mission that tested the capsule’s ability to conduct controlled flight and withstand reentry through Earth’s atmosphere.

SpaceX had stated that Starfall is intended to provide affordable and regular access to microgravity conditions for scientific research and manufacturing in space. According to a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration environmental assessment released in May, the disc-shaped capsule is about 0.75 meters tall and 3.1 meters wide. Its mass is about 2,100 kilograms, and it can return up to 1,000 kilograms of cargo to Earth.

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Other spacecraft on the mission

Other Bandwagon-5 payloads included W-Series 7, an orbital mini-factory of California-based company Varda Space Industries. Such capsules are designed to manufacture, among other things, pharmaceutical products in orbit and return them to Earth.

The mission also carried cubesats and microsatellites, including the Pelican-12 Earth-observation satellite built by Planet. Under the plan, deployment of the 32 payloads was to begin about 57 minutes after launch and last nearly two hours. Starfall was to be separated from the Falcon 9 upper stage last, 2 hours and 48 minutes after liftoff.

About nine minutes after launch, the Falcon 9 first stage landed on SpaceX’s A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship in the Atlantic Ocean. This was the booster’s 19th flight.