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The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a reentry license for Varda Space’s manufacturing capsule, allowing the first batch of space medicines to return to Earth.
California-based Varda Space Industries was Struggling to set up its first orbital factory, which was originally scheduled to return to Earth in September 2023, but was denied re-entry. After months of trying, the company was finally granted its re-entry license from the FAA, which will allow it to land its capsule at the Utah Test and Training Range on Feb. 21. announced,
“Did it go as smoothly as Verda or the FAA anticipated?” Varda co-founder Delian Asparouhov told Gizmodo over the phone. “The answer is no, but at the end of the day we reached a conclusion that we are very happy with and the FAA did its duty to ensure that this was a safe operation.”
Varda’s first in-space manufacturing capsule was launched in June, designed to manufacture products in a microgravity environment (to avoid gravity-induced defects) and transport them back to Earth. For its first mission, the 264-pound (120-kilogram) capsule succeeded in growing crystals of ritonavir, a drug used to treat HIV, in orbit. According to, protein crystals formed in space form larger and more perfect crystals than protein crystals formed on Earth NASA,
Although the test mission dropped the manufacturing part, it was unable to return the crystal to Earth. The U.S. Air Force rejected Varda Space Industries’ request to land its capsule at a Utah training area, while the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not grant the company permission to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, allowing the capsule to land in space. I got stuck.
Those extra few months in space had no effect on the good stuff inside the capsule. “It’s like table salt, being inside a vial that is inside a vacuum, being inside a satellite, experiences very little impact on it,” Asparouhov said. “Salt is still salty.”
Had this been a more complex pharmaceutical manufacturing operation this probably wouldn’t have happened, but fortunately, since this was Varda’s first mission, the company kept it pretty simple. “Obviously, as we produce more complex pharmaceuticals over time, they may have greater time constraints,” Asparouhov said.
Varda is the first entity to be granted a Part 450 reentry license, which falls under the new rules, and the first commercial entity to seek to land a spacecraft on U.S. soil. This might have been the reason why the company was struggling to get its license approved. at one point, Varda tried to land her capsule in Australia Instead to avoid having to navigate the regulatory framework within the United States.
Asparouhov also blames this on poor inter-agency coordination and hopes that in the future there will be more clarity on which government agencies are responsible for which parts of these types of re-entry operations.
As it waits for its first capsule to return from orbit, Varda Space is getting ready to launch its second mission this summer. “We think this is a first step toward many different things that could eventually be brought to Earth on a more routine commercial and lower-cost scale,” Asparouhov said.
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