Varda is designing and building the infrastructure needed to make low Earth orbit accessible to multiple industries, from in-orbit production equipment to reliable and economical reentry capsules.
Reusable rockets have increased cost-effective access to space. Now, humans can expand and commercialize decades of materials research conducted on the International Space Station and other space habitats to benefit people on Earth. The W-Series is the first-ever commercial satellite and reentry vehicle built specifically for the return of materials from orbit.
Varda’s W-Series spacecraft is a free flyer—it’s self-sustaining, fully independent of other space stations, and capable of safely bringing materials back to Earth.
With the W-Series capsules, Varda has built a scalable microgravity formulation platform. The reentry capsule completes the logistics chain, allowing orbital materials an inexpensive ride back to Earth while operating as frequent flights to enable continued research.
No need to wait years to run an experiment in space.
Access the conditions needed to study the behavior of matter beyond Earth's pull, without the wait.
Our orbital platform supports microgravity experiments in fluid dynamics, crystallization, combustion, and thermal transport, with fast return and customizable setups for deep scientific discovery.
Growing the orbital economy depends on high-cadence reentry of materials from orbit. At Varda we want to make reentry as common as launch, and shipments from space as common as shipments from anywhere else.
The company’s fourth mission will focus on demonstrating its new satellite bus, an in-house heatshield, and solution-based pharmaceutical processing.
Reentered at Koonibba Test Range May 13, 2025
Reentered at Koonibba Test Range Feb. 27, 2025
Reentered at Utah Test and Training Range Feb. 21, 2024
Varda’s capsules are launched into orbit aboard commercial launch vehicles with dedicated options available.
Once in orbit, Varda’s pharmaceutical processing equipment gets to work, heating, mixing, cooling, and performing other functions in a microgravity environment that yield novel results.
Once the processing run is complete, Varda's capsule separates from the orbital satellite.
Varda’s capsule reenters the Earth’s atmosphere at more than 18,000 miles per hour and reaching more than Mach 25. The capsule touches down on land via a parachute, and the capsule and its payload are recovered for post flight analysis.
