Military role for Starship

Pentagon sees craft moving cargo quickly, safely — aiding national security

Someday, instead of a U.S. military ship or a humanitarian organization’s truck, a SpaceX Starship might be the first vehicle to bring help to people suffering amid disasters, conflicts or other crises around the world.

The Department of Defense says the commercial space company’s spacecraft, which is in development at its Starbase facility near Boca Chica Beach, eventually could carry out some of its most complex missions moving tons of cargo around the globe quickly and safely.

But the Pentagon’s interest in Starship goes beyond missions on Earth. It’s also eyeing the craft to haul huge payloads into space.

SpaceX’s success with reusable rockets combined with the potential of Starship — the world’s largest and most powerful spacecraft — has led the DOD to invest more than $120 million in contracts with the company and others to develop a way to move 100 tons of cargo anywhere on Earth in two hours or less.

Most of that money, $102 million, is part of a five-year contract with SpaceX that began in 2022. The rest has gone to other companies, including Knight Aerospace, which is based at Port San Antonio and received $3.75 million in Small Business Innovation Research contracts last year to build “low-cost, intermodal cargo containers for point-to-point rocket transport.”

Beyond slashing response times, uncrewed rockets would keep personnel out of harm’s way, enabling the U.S. to move materials — parts, medical equipment and supplies, humanitarian relief items and equipment to support special operations — to places protected by strong enemy

Master Sgt. Alexander Burnett/Associated Press A Defense Department project could one day have SpaceX’s Starships carrying out missions often done by C-17s, such as this one in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2021.

Marvin Pfeiffer/Staff photographer A Starship lifts off for a test flight in November from Starbase. Starship is at the forefront of the Pentagon’s Rocket Cargo project.