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Varda Space Industries

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Varda Space Industries
Company typePrivate
IndustrySpace industry
Founded2021; 3 years ago (2021)
FounderWill Bruey
and Delian Asparouhov
Headquarters
El Segundo, California
,
United States
Key people
Delian Asparouhov, president
Will Bruey (CEO)
Products
Websitevarda.com

Varda Space Industries is a privately held American space research company headquartered in El Segundo, California. Founded in January 2021,[1] the company designs, builds, and flies spacecraft that process pharmaceuticals in microgravity. The company targets small molecule crystallization, which is difficult to produce in Earth's gravity, and brings those crystals back to Earth with their atmospheric reentry vehicle. Investors in the company include venture capitalists such as Khosla Ventures and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund.[2]

History

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Varda Space was founded in January 2021 by Will Bruey and Delian Asparouhov. Will Bruey is a former electrical engineer of SpaceX, and Delian Asparouhov is associated with Founders Fund. Varda Space Industries began designing their first generation of space vehicles in January 2021 to manufacture new materials in microgravity and send those materials back to Earth in a reentry capsule. Manufacturing materials in the microgravity environment, and absence of dust particles, is beneficial for certain pharmaceuticals, fiber optics, and computer chips. In July 2021, Varda Space received US$42 million in a funding round from various venture capitalists, after receiving US$9 million in an initial funding round in December 2020.[3] The company announced that it raised another US$90 million in April 2024.[4]

In August 2021, Varda Space Industries announced it had signed a contract with Rocket Lab to acquire three Photon satellite buses, with an option to purchase a fourth, to carry out missions to build the space station. The first bus was delivered in Q2 2023.[5][6] In October 2021, Varda selected SpaceX as a launch provider for the first four launches.[6]

Varda Space launched its first 300 kg (660 lb) spacecraft on Falcon 9's Transporter-8 mission in June 2023. Varda's first spacecraft is focused on demonstrating the ability to produce pharmaceuticals in microgravity. Returning the capsule to Earth was planned for mid-August 2023.[7] Varda Space launched the first vehicle with approval from both the FAA and SpaceX to launch with the understanding Varda, the FAA, and the landing site at UTTR would deliver a reentry license before the proposed reentry date. The first proposed reentry date was denied on September 6, 2023, due to issues between the FAA regulatory requirements and the landing site.[8] Varda subsequently started exploring options to direct capsule reentry to the Koonibba Test Range in Australia.[9] However, on February 14, 2024, Varda was successfully granted a re-entry license by the FAA, and Winnebago-1 reentered on US soil on February 21, 2024 at 21:40 UTC.[10]

Facilities

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Varda has offices in Washington, D.C., and El Segundo, California. Its El Segundo production facility is where vehicles, equipment, and materials are built, integrated, and tested.[11]  Varda’s headquarters houses a pharmaceutical laboratory, as well as a hypergravity crystallization platform, a screening tool for the crystallization of small-molecule pharmaceuticals.[12][13]

W-Series Re-Entry Capsule

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Varda’s W-Series capsule is an autonomous free-flying microgravity formulation platform intended for terrestrial landing. The W-Series capsule reenters the Earth’s atmosphere at more than 18,000 miles per hour and reaches speeds above Mach 25.[14]  The capsule touches down on land via a parachute. The W-Series capsules’ heatshields are made of C-PICA (Conformal Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator), a thermal protection material produced by NASA Ames Research Center. The material was originally developed at Ames, and the reentry of W-1 marked the first time a NASA-manufactured C-PICA heat shield ever returned from space.[15]  

W-1

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Varda’s W-1 capsule was the first commercial spacecraft to land on a military test range, the first to land on US soil, and was also the first spacecraft approved to reenter under the FAA’s Part 450 license.[16][17]   Varda demonstrated the pharmaceutical processing equipment inside W-1 by growing crystals of Form III of the antiretroviral drug ritonavir.[18]

W-2

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The W-2 capsule will land at the Koonibba Test Range in South Australia in late 2024.[19]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Varda Space Industries: Pioneering In-Space Manufacturing for Earth's Benefit". New Space Economy. Retrieved 2 October 2024.
  2. ^ Sheetz, Michael (29 July 2021). "Space start-up Varda, founded by SpaceX and Founders Fund veterans, aims to build factories in orbit". CNBC. Archived from the original on 31 August 2021. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  3. ^ Alamalhodaei, Aria (29 July 2021). "Varda Space Industries closes $42M Series A for off-planet manufacturing". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 31 August 2021. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  4. ^ "Varda Announces $90 million Series B Funding to Build Factories in Space". PR Newswire. 4 April 2024. Archived from the original on 20 August 2024. Retrieved 22 August 2024.
  5. ^ Alamalhodaei, Aria (11 August 2021). "Space manufacturing startup Varda inks deal with Rocket Lab for three spacecraft". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 31 August 2021. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  6. ^ a b Foust, Jeff (11 October 2021). "Varda Space selects SpaceX for launch of first space manufacturing satellite". SpaceNews. Archived from the original on 26 February 2024. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
  7. ^ "Forget space tourism. This company wants to make drug manufacturing the next big extraterrestrial business". 12 June 2023. Archived from the original on 13 June 2023. Retrieved 14 June 2023.
  8. ^ Clark, Stephen (21 September 2023). "Permission denied for reentry of Varda's orbiting experiment capsule". ArsTechnica. Archived from the original on 23 September 2023. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  9. ^ Clark, Stephen (20 October 2023). "Varda looks to Australia after delays in obtaining US reentry approval". ArsTechnica. Archived from the original on 19 October 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  10. ^ Varda Space Industries [@VardaSpace] (21 February 2024). "Update #6 on Varda's W-1 Mission" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  11. ^ Company page. "Varda.com".
  12. ^ Gormley, Brian (12 March 2024). "Varda Hopes New Research Draws More Drugmakers to Space Factories". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 27 August 2024.
  13. ^ Pal, Kanjakha (7 March 2024). "Gravity as a Knob for Tuning Particle Size Distributions of Small Molecules". Crystal Growth & Design. 24 (6): 2370–2383. doi:10.1021/acs.cgd.3c01274.
  14. ^ Kulakhmetov, Marat F. (27 July 2024). "Optimizing Optical Emission Measurements on the Varda Hypersonic Testbed Vehicle". AIAA 2024-4560. doi:10.2514/6.2024-4560. ISBN 978-1-62410-716-0.
  15. ^ "NASA Helps Emerging Space Companies 'Take the Heat' - NASA". 7 March 2024. Retrieved 27 August 2024.
  16. ^ Clark, Stephen (27 February 2024). "Varda's drug-cooking Winnebago will be remembered as a space pioneer". Ars Technica. Retrieved 27 August 2024.
  17. ^ Alamalhodaei, Aria (21 February 2024). "Varda Space, Rocket Lab nail first-of-its-kind spacecraft landing in Utah". TechCrunch. Retrieved 27 August 2024.
  18. ^ Bauser, Haley C.; Smith, Pamela A.; Parent, Stephan D.; Chan, Larry R.; Bhavsar, Ami S.; Condon, Kenneth H.; McCalip, Andrew; Croom, Jordan M.; Purcell, Dale K. (21 March 2024), Return of the Ritonavir: A Study on the Stability of Pharmaceuticals Processed in Orbit and Returned to Earth, doi:10.26434/chemrxiv-2024-vb20g-v3, retrieved 27 August 2024
  19. ^ "Varda on X".
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