Varda Space has published a video made by the onboard camera of the W-3 capsule. It shows its re-entry and landing.
We cooked. (Again.) pic.twitter.com/gSgwR4J6LU
— Varda Space Industries (@VardaSpace) May 16, 2025
Varda Space was founded in 2021. It specializes in conducting orbital research and experiments and then returning the instruments and resulting samples to Earth. To date, the company has completed three space missions.
The latest was the W-3 mission, which was launched on March 14. Its primary purpose was to conduct hypersonic research commissioned by the U.S. Air Force. Inside the 120-kilogram return capsule on the Rocket Lab-built Pioneer satellite was an inertial measurement unit. It collected data on the acceleration and rotation of the vehicle.
W-3 separated from the satellite on May 13. Shortly thereafter, it entered the Earth’s 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.
A 28-minute video published by the company shows what the capsule’s return looked like. It begins the moment it separates from the satellite. Next, the capsule entered the Earth’s atmosphere, after which a cloud of plasma formed around it. Since the camera was also equipped with a microphone, this allowed us to record the sounds that occurred inside W-3 as it traveled.
After successfully flying this section, the capsule extinguished its speed and released the parachute. The final footage shows the moment of its landing, after which views of southern Australia can be seen in the frame.
