If you’ve ever dreamed of having your packages delivered from space, your dream may soon be realized. How? With a space capsule designed to carry 500 pounds of stuff wherever you need on earth and in under an hour.
The plan doesn’t involve drones or teleportation. It’s a craft that hovers in space until it’s called down into orbit, where it releases its payload, which gently parachutes down to Earth. It’s like an orbital strike from a militaristic sci-fi story, but for deliveries. For now, at least.
Ars Technica has the story about the company behind this orbital FedEx. They’re called Inversion. It’s a Los Angeles-based startup founded in 2021 by two former Boston University students, Justin Fiaschetti and Austin Briggs.
Their pitch is simple: don’t just use space to beam down data via satellite; use space to move stuff around the planet. Specifically, military things like drones, calm gear, trauma kits, and anything else we might need to kill one another more efficiently.
This Start up Wants To Drop Your Packages on Your Porch From Space
In January, Inversion tested its first prototype, Ray, aboard a SpaceX Transporter-12 rideshare mission. The small spacecraft didn’t return to Earth, but it proved it could maneuver in orbit and maintain its power supplies.
That was enough for Inversion to feel confident unveiling Arc, a larger, 8-foot-tall lifting-body reentry vehicle that doesn’t need a runway and can land safely via parachute. As a bonus, its propulsion system is non-toxic, so it won’t kill anybody as it drops off tools that will be used to kill people.
The long-term plan is to position these “Arcs” in orbit for up to five years, and then drop them whenever they’re needed. So, conceivably, you would have an Arc hanging out in space filled with supplies. If you need them, you simply call them down; they enter orbit, release the cargo, which then parachutes down to the earth.
Inversion says it’s on track to launch the first arc by the end of 2026. If all goes well, the US will be the first nation on the planet to have a resupply arsenal waiting to drop from the heavens at a moment’s notice.
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