- Blue Origin and Anduril secured Air Force contracts to study rocket-based, rapid cargo delivery from orbit to Earth.
- The studies focus on reentry technologies for 5-10 ton payloads and operations using commercial rockets like New Glenn.
- If realised, rocket cargo services could revolutionise global military logistics and emergency response.
Blue Origin and Anduril have each secured new contracts from the U.S. Air Force to explore how space rockets could transform the Pentagon’s global supply chain.
Under the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Rocket Experimentation for Global Agile Logistics (REGAL) program, Blue Origin was awarded $1.37 million and Anduril $1 million in small but strategic study contracts.
The goal: Analyse how commercial rockets and reentry systems could enable “delivery as a service”—rapidly moving military cargo from orbit to anywhere on Earth, with the potential to reach remote theatres in less than an hour.
Blue Origin will examine how its technology, including the heavy-lift New Glenn rocket, could handle point-to-point material transport, focusing on operations from its Florida hub.
Anduril, in a move that signals its expansion into new territory, will study how to develop a reentry payload container capable of carrying 5-10 tons of equipment safely back to Earth.
The container must integrate with different rocket platforms and survive the punishing temperatures of atmospheric reentry—a complex technical challenge seen in only a few existing solutions, like SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.
These exploratory contracts follow Rocket Lab’s own win under REGAL earlier this year, and collectively represent the Pentagon’s growing interest in commercialised, on-demand logistics for both cargo and personnel.
If rocket cargo services prove feasible, the military could contract rocket “delivery as a service,” potentially slashing response times for critical deployments worldwide.
Edited by Annette George
