WASHINGTON — A startup that launched its first mission to check space manufacturing technologies last month is waiting on a Federal Aviation Administration license to find a way to bring what it produced back to Earth.
Varda Space Industries launched its first spacecraft, called W-Series 1, on the SpaceX Transporter-8 rideshare mission June 12, to check the power to supply crystals in microgravity. Those crystals could be brought back to Earth in a reentry capsule set to return as soon as July 17.
Nonetheless, Varda said July 20 it was delaying the capsule’s return as it really works with “our government partners to make sure everyone seems to be fully ready.” The corporate didn’t elaborate on those issues or estimate when it will be able to return the capsule.
In a July 24 interview, Delian Asparouhov, co-founder of Varda, said the corporate was still working with the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Industrial Space Transportation for a reentry license for the spacecraft. That office, best known for licensing business launches, can also be accountable for overseeing reentries by business spacecraft.
A key issue, he said, is that Varda is the primary to hunt a reentry license under latest FAA regulations often called Part 450. Those regulations were enacted by the FAA greater than two years ago to streamline the launch and reentry licensing process.
“I feel plenty of the collaborations that we’ve had with the FAA have been trailblazing, and we recognize that, given we’re the primary, we set the usual for what future Part 450 reentry looks like,” he said. Varda began discussions with the FAA in early 2021, shortly after the corporate’s founding.
For the business launch industry, the Part 450 regulations have change into an area of concern. Only a handful of Part 450 launch licenses have been issued to this point because the FAA begins a transition to the brand new regulations, but those licenses have taken longer to finish than expected, in some cases missing a 180-day statutory deadline. Industry officials raised the difficulty at a July 13 hearing of the House Science Committee and at a July 11 meeting of an FAA advisory group, the Industrial Space Transportation Advisory Committee.
“Part 450 is a brand new regulatory regime that obviously comes with challenges,” he said. “But we’re also excited to hopefully help set the usual for what this could seem like on the reentry side of things.”
Asparouhov said his company didn’t have a firm date for returning the 120-kilogram capsule but was planning for a possible reentry in early to mid August. Along with the FAA reentry license, Varda has to coordinate with the FAA’s air traffic organization on airspace closures and with the Defense Department’s Utah Test and Training Range, where the capsule will land.
There are not any pressing technical issues that require the capsule to return by a particular deadline, but the corporate would really like to bring the capsule back sooner somewhat than later. “There’s no reason why you’d need to add on risk by extending a mission beyond what it was designed for,” he said. “Our goal is to bring it home as quickly as possible given the positive business and technical implications for it.”
During its time in orbit, the spacecraft tested the power to supply crystals of a drug called ritonavir used to treat HIV/AIDS. Telemetry from the spacecraft indicates the experiment went as planned, but the corporate desires to get the crystals back to confirm it did produce the expected crystals.
Varda has “plenty of very eager customers” within the pharmaceutical industry thinking about the outcomes from this mission, Asparouhov said. The corporate may also sell data collected through the capsule’s return to Earth for presidency customers.
“We’re a startup and delaying day-to-day burns capital day-to-day,” he said. “I prefer to make progress in shorter periods of time.”
The corporate is working on its second spacecraft that, just like the first, can be manufactured by Rocket Lab using that company’s Photon bus. That spacecraft will launch on the Transporter-10 rideshare mission late this yr or early next yr.
Future spacecraft will carry more sophisticated equipment for producing crystals for pharmaceutical applications. “This primary mission on board had the equivalent of a toaster by way of like pharma manufacturing capabilities. We definitely need to construct the convection oven, the blender and the mixer, a ton more capabilities to satisfy our clients,” he said. “But we’re super completely satisfied that we managed to make a bit little bit of toast.”