'Space warehouse' can be delivered anywhere on Earth

The spacecraft of American startup Inversion Space will act as a warehouse, transporting goods anywhere in just one hour .

Inversion Space , an American startup founded in 2021, aims to revolutionize the field of military logistics with the idea of ​​"warehouse in space" , Interesting Engineering reported on May 17. The company wants to deploy reusable retrosphere spacecraft to store goods in orbit and deliver them anywhere on Earth within an hour.

Inversion Space's Ray spacecraft. (Photo: Inversion Space/X).

The Ray Road opening mission is expected to launch as early as October. In it, the test spacecraft will launch into space in SpaceX's Transporter-12 joint flight. Ray will test technologies to support the development of a larger ship, according to Inversion Space co-founder and CEO Justin Fiaschetti.

Inversion Space is oriented as a transportation and warehousing company, Fiaschetti said. "We store goods in space and when needed we deliver them in less than an hour," he said. Spaceships can transport anything from medical supplies and battlefield equipment to small surveillance drones.

"The military always needs to transport goods quickly and accurately globally ," Fiaschetti said. Inversion Space also counts the US Department of Defense as its main customer. After success with military customers, Inversion hopes costs will decrease, allowing it to commercialize the service for sectors such as private aviation and cruise ships.

Inversion Space's spacecraft is being designed to be compatible with any commercial launch vehicle. However, the company has not yet disclosed detailed information about the ship's tonnage.

With the upcoming Ray mission, the compact spacecraft will operate in orbit for a few weeks, then begin burning its engines to lower orbit. According to plan, it will plunge back into the atmosphere at supersonic speed, and at the same time deploy a pair of parachutes developed by Inversion Space to gently land in the waters off the coast of California, USA. This mission will help validate key reentry technologies before building larger cargo ships.