Mountain View, California – The Department of Defense Unit is looking at ways to use SpaceX spacecraft vehicles to support the broader construction of spatial refueling.
Speaking at the Smallsat Symposium on February 6th, Gary Henry, a senior adviser to the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and former SpaceX executive, will work with SpaceX to support Starship’s in-space refueling capabilities more extensively. He said he was looking into the method. User range.
Spacecraft must use propellant movement within space to allow vehicles to travel beyond Earth’s orbit, such as the moon. In its construction, the “tanker” spacecraft delivers liquid oxygen and methane propellants to orbital depots. That depot is used to refuel the spacecraft for travel beyond Leo.
“You can refuel on Leo’s orbit and add nine kilometers per second to your vehicle. You’ll unlock your solar system quite a bit at that point,” he said.
SpaceX approached DIU on how its architecture could be used beyond Starship. “When I was at SpaceX, I suggested, ‘Hey, that might be a really cool platform for you to host refueling capabilities that will serve the wider community,” he recalls. “It could help us explore truly novel ways to potentially leverage it and create standards that can be used by everyone in the future.”
He did not provide any other details about the research, such as a specific refueling approach or when the efforts were completed. This effort is more broadly adapted with dynamic space operations, one of the topics of interest to DIU.
The US military has generally shown some interest in in-space refueling, but there is industry concern that it may not be a priority. This includes reports that in its 2026 budget request, Space Force was considering zeroing its budget item for Space Mobility.
Henry said he heard concerns that refueling and related capabilities could be “under the line” in budget plans, but he emphasized the importance of that. “Being able to manipulate in ways the enemy cannot do in orbit is one of the key differentiators that prevent, ultimately stop, and ultimately constrain conflict in orbit.”
Another spacecraft application DIU is exploring is what he called “new responsive space delivery,” which defined it as using rockets to provide a unique payload. Air Force Research Labs has already studied the concept of “rocket cargo” like Starship through the Vanguard program for point-to-point transport
The DIU approach involves using a spacecraft to deliver cargo from orbit to the ground. “You have payloads on orbit, and you want to do something useful with them, and you re-enter them, take them home, misuse them in some way I want to,” he said.
“We want to leverage implicit things in your architecture, implicit things in your system, and do that in the way that’s not in the conversation, but add to the conversation.” He spoke about DIU’s general approach to using commercial capabilities like Starship.
