SpaceX was awarded a $100 million contract by the U.S. Air Force to explore point-to-point rocket freight technology

According to SpaceNews, the U.S. Air Force recently awarded SpaceX a five-year, $102 million rocket freight contract to demonstrate the technology and capabilities to transport military supplies and provide assistance with heavy rockets. The Rocket Freight Project is a new program led by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to study the utility of using large commercial rockets to perform U.S. Department of Defense's global logistics transportation missions.

SpaceNews reported that the contract does not target any of SpaceX's launch vehicles. The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory will use SpaceX's commercial orbit-entry launches and landings to collect critical data on environmental characteristics and performance. SpaceX will offer cargo hold designs that can be quickly handled, and the U.S. Air Force will explore the use of multimodal containers that are compatible with other transportation delivery modes.

Rocket Freight Program Manager Greg Spanjers said the contract will formalize the government-industry partnership to help determine what can be achieved when a rocket is used for freight, the true capability, speed, and cost of integrated systems.

"Commercial suppliers envision fixed point-to-point transport to a given location, and once this commercial service is available, we will certainly be interested in sourcing." Greg Spanjers also said it is exploring new flight routes on a larger scale to alleviate airspace overflight problems, exploring more options for landing in difficult locations, studying anthropogenic factors when landing in densely populated locations, and integrating a wider range of cargoes, including medical supplies.

Previously, U.S. Transportation Command signed a collaborative research and development agreement with SpaceX and Exploration Architecture Corporation in 2020 to study the concept of space rapid transit. Similar to the point-to-point space transport technology for goods is the "Earth Hour traffic circle" proposed by Musk a few years ago, except that the point-to-point transport is people.

In 2017, he shared a video in a speech. In the video, the next-generation, fully reusable transport system Starship launches passengers into space from a maritime platform near New York, landing 39 minutes later on a similar maritime platform near Shanghai.

The starship has a maximum speed of 27,000 km/h, except for 39 minutes from New York to Shanghai, 24 minutes from Los Angeles to Toronto, Canada, 27 minutes from Bangkok to Dubai, 29 minutes from London to New York, and 25 minutes from Los Angeles to New York.

In 2020, Musk replied to netizens on social media that there will be many test flights before carrying commercial passengers, and the first round-the-world passenger test flight of the "Starship" system may be carried out in 2 to 3 years.