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Starfighters Space
Starfighters Space flies the only commercial F-104 fleet, launching supersonic research payloads from Kennedy Space Center for NASA and aerospace firms.
Starfighters Space
Starfighters Space bases its operations at the Shuttle Landing Facility in Titusville, Florida, leveraging a fleet of vintage F-104 Starfighters acquired from the Italian Air Force and other military surplus sources. The firm was conceived to fill a specific post-Shuttle gap: the lack of affordable, repeatable access to transonic and supersonic flight regimes for testing small satellites, spacecraft components, and high-reliability materials. Its founder and chief pilot, Rick Svetkoff, a former Air Force maintainer and civilian demonstration pilot, built the operation around the singular performance profile of the F-104 — an aircraft capable of sustained Mach 2 flight and zoom climbs past 100,000 feet. Unlike traditional sounding rockets or parabolic-flight aircraft, the Starfighter platform delivers a longer-duration microgravity experience with high acceleration loads and true high-dynamic-pressure conditions, which is essential for qualifying spacecraft separation systems, CubeSat deployers, and re-entry materials. The firm's flight profiles can simulate aspects of a launch vehicle's ascent environment, making it a critical risk-reduction node for NASA, the Department of Defense, and commercial space startups. The company operates under an FAA commercial spaceflight license and has executed flight campaigns testing hardware for programs including the Artemis lunar return effort and multiple private space station developers. Starfighters Space maintains its own maintenance, engineering, and safety infrastructure at the Space Coast, operating a type of aircraft for which spare parts and pilot training pipelines no longer exist in the active U.S. military inventory. The team is small, comprising high-time ex-military aviators, aerospace engineers, and vintage jet maintainers. In recent years, the firm expanded its utility by configuring Starfighters to carry a variety of external payloads and nose-mounted experiments, working alongside academic institutions and foreign space agencies seeking flight heritage before committing hardware to orbital launches. What structurally differentiates Starfighters from any other flight-test operator is its monopoly on a physical capability: no other entity offers commercial supersonic point-to-point flight using a fighter-class aircraft dedicated to external payload research. This is not a booking platform, a fractional ownership scheme, or a broker — it is a flying laboratory with a maintenance hangar and a runway clearance at a secure federal launch complex. The firm's moat is a dwindling global fleet of F-104s combined with institutional knowledge on operating and sustaining them entirely outside a national air force supply chain.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
—
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Titusville
Corporate office
Titusville, FL, United States
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
What exactly does Starfighters Space do that no other company can?
It provides a commercially operated fleet of supersonic F-104 fighter jets for research payloads requiring high-dynamic-pressure, transonic, or hypersonic-relevant flight environments. No other private firm offers a dedicated supersonic testbed aircraft with a payload bay. This allows space hardware to be tested in realistic ascent conditions before orbital launch, reducing the risk of catastrophic failure.
Who runs the flight operations and who is the primary pilot?
Rick Svetkoff founded and leads Starfighters as its chief pilot. A veteran of U.S. Air Force aircraft maintenance and a highly experienced civilian jet demonstration pilot, Svetkoff personally manages the acquisition, restoration, and operation of the F-104 fleet. The flight crew is drawn from a small pool of ex-military aviators qualified on century-series fighters.
How does Starfighters make money — is it a charter service or a research contractor?
Starfighters generates revenue under fixed-price test campaigns and per-flight-hour contracts with government agencies, defense primes, and venture-funded space startups. It is not an air charter operator selling seats to the public. Customers pay for specific flight profiles, such as microgravity periods, high-G maneuvers, or supersonic dashes with instrumented payloads attached to the aircraft's hardpoints.
What types of customers does Starfighters Space serve?
Customers include NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense, publicly traded aerospace corporations, and early-stage space technology companies seeking flight heritage. The firm has also performed missions for foreign space agencies without sovereign access to supersonic fighter platforms. Academic consortia and CubeSat developers also contract flight time to test deployment mechanisms and structural integrity.
Why use a 1950s-era F-104 instead of a newer jet or a rocket?
The F-104's specific performance envelope — sustained Mach 2 speed, high altitude zoom climb capability, and a sturdy wing suitable for mounting external experiments — is unmatched by any currently produced commercial or military aircraft available for civilian hire. Sounding rockets and parabolic-flight jets offer shorter microgravity periods or cannot replicate the aerodynamic pressure profile of a rocket launch; the Starfighter fills that gap precisely.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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