Varda Space announced the successful return of the W-3 capsule from space. This marked the completion of the company’s third space mission.
Varda Space was founded in 2021. It specializes in conducting orbital research and experiments and then returning the instruments and resulting samples to Earth. As part of its debut mission, the company tested an orbital pharmaceutical factory designed to grow crystals that could be used in the pharmaceutical industry.
The second Varda Space mission was realized in cooperation with the U.S. Air Force and NASA. Its purpose was to study the plasma environment during descent at hypersonic speeds. These data will help improve thermal shielding, sensor designs, and aerodynamics of future hypersonic vehicles.
Launched on March 14, 2025, the W-3 mission also involved hypersonic research. Inside the capsule was an inertial measurement unit developed for the U.S. Air Force by Innovative Scientific Solutions Incorporated. It collected data on the acceleration and rotation of the vehicle.
The W-3 mission returned to Earth on May 13. It entered the atmosphere at a speed exceeding Mach 25 (i.e. 25 times faster than the speed of sound) and made a successful landing at the Koonibba Test Range in southern Australia.
According to a statement from Varda Space, the W-3 mission will provide unprecedented data needed to develop the next generation of space and defense capabilities. In the future, the company intends to increase flight frequency and promote what it describes as a “low-cost approach to iterative hypersonic science and technology experiments.”
According to Spacenews
