This project is fully operational, but had to start as a rigorous speculative design process – more sci-fi than real world. Until it wasn’t.  It is representative of the kind of project that will still feel like a faraway future, but is currently manufacturing a drug experiment in space.

Take a look at the The Varda Space Drug Factory. 

This Space Factory Will Attempt to Produce Medical Drugs in Orbit

“Varda Space Industries launched its first in-orbit manufacturing spacecraft on board SpaceX’s latest rideshare mission.”

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off in June while carrying 72 small satellites, including the first in-space manufacturing spacecraft with a mission to produce pharmaceutical drugs in orbit and return them back to Earth.  Varda Space Industries’ first space factory is operating in orbit after launching on board a Falcon 9 rocket from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base…according to a press release. The spacecraft itself was built by Rocket Lab and is designed to provide power, communications, propulsion, and attitude control to Varda’s 264-pound (120-kilogram) capsule, which is designed to manufacture and carry the products on its way back to Earth.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off this week while carrying 72 small satellites, including the first in-space manufacturing spacecraft with a mission to produce pharmaceutical drugs in orbit and return them back to Earth.

We have ACQUISITION OF SIGNAL

The world's first space factory's solar panels have found the sun and it's beginning to de-tumble

— Varda Space Industries (@VardaSpace) June 13, 2023

Varda Space Industries’ first space factory is operating in orbit after launching on board a Falcon 9 rocket from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base on Monday, according to a press release. The spacecraft itself was built by Rocket Lab and is designed to provide power, communications, propulsion, and attitude control to Varda’s 264-pound (120-kilogram) capsule, which is designed to manufacture and carry the products on its way back to Earth.

Varda was founded in 2020 (one of its cofounders was a former SpaceX engineer) and aims to use space to create better products for Earth. The microgravity environment provides some benefits that could make for better production in space, overall reducing gravity-induced defects. Protein crystals made in space, for example, form larger and more perfect crystals than those created on Earth, according to NASA.

The startup raised $42 million less than a year after its inception. Varda ordered four Photon spacecraft from Rocket Lab for its in-space pharmaceutical manufacturing capsules, the second spacecraft is currently undergoing assembly, integration, and testing, according to the company. If all goes well for its first mission, the Varda capsule will return to Earth soon, packed with a payload of space drugs. (1)

Forget space tourism. This company wants to make drug manufacturing the next big extraterrestrial business

How it works

Varda’s vision is straightforward: The company’s capsule will launch with an experiment already on board. Once in orbit, the capsule detaches and begins flying through space attached to what’s called a satellite bus, a structure that will provide the power, propulsion and communications necessary to navigate the vacuum of space. (For Varda’s first few missions, the satellite bus will be provided by another commercial space company, Rocket Lab.)

Then the experiment begins, carried out by simple on-board machines. The goal is to create key components of pharmaceuticals while in microgravity. In this weightless environment, such experiments aren’t bogged down by Earth’s pull.

Research has already established that protein crystals grown in space can form more perfect structures compared with those grown on Earth. These space-formed crystals can then be used to create pharmaceuticals that the human body could more easily absorb — or overall better-performing drugs.

One key example, from research Merck carried out on the International Space Station, is the active ingredient pembrolizumab used in the cancer drug Keytruda. Scientists found that using crystals formed in space could create a more stable drug, one that could be administered by a shot rather than the time-consuming intravenous injection currently used. (Merck used that research to inform other Earth-based studies, but the findings have not yet been applied to drugs on the market, the company told CNN on Friday.)

Varda’s first mission will focus on research around ritonavir, a drug traditionally used to treat HIV but more recently included in the antiviral medication Paxlovid to fight Covid-19.

After Varda’s experiment is finished, engineers on the ground will evaluate if the capsule is ready for return. If they give a final “go,” the satellite bus will push the capsule back toward Earth. The capsule then will plummet into Earth’s atmosphere and parachute to a gentle landing, where the pharmaceutical materials can be recovered.

This mission won’t be easy. Varda will have to prove its robotics can carry out these experiments remotely. On the space station, astronauts with keen eyes and dexterous hands have overseen such research. These robotics will also have to survive the jolting forces of a rocket launch.

The return home will be difficult as well: Blazing back into the Earth’s atmosphere at roughly 18,000 miles per hour will create extreme heat and a buildup of plasma. It’s widely considered the most dangerous leg of any journey to space.

The odds of success on this first attempt?

“Probably less than 90%, but better than a coin flip,” said Bruey, Varda’s CEO. “And I think that’s probably the most honest answer.” (2)

Blazing a new trail back to Earth

SpaceX’s Dragon and Boeing’s Starliner are the two other commercial re-entry vehicles that have flown back to Earth from space. Both are significantly larger and more complex than Varda’s vehicle.

“It’s a very different type of re-entry capsule. If you think about it, both Dragon and Starliner, these are vehicles that are $100 million-plus, minimum, to build, and billion-dollar-plus total programs. These are meant to carry humans, have active control, fully pressurized environments,” Asparouhov said. “We are effectively the polar opposite type of re-entry vehicle. If those are luxurious limousines, we’re building like a 1986 Toyota Corolla that is meant to be less than a million bucks a pop, quickly refurbished, and then shot right back into space.”

“Ultimately as you start to get to a large economy in orbit, you do need extremely low-cost, regularly flown re-entry vehicles, and I think that’s something that’s a core competency of Varda,” Asparouhov said.

Varda Space has raised $53 million to date from investors and venture capital firms. Asparouhov is a partner at Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, and one of the early backers of Varda.

What Next? 

A second experimental flight of Varda’s orbital “factory” is scheduled for launch later this year.

The company was founded to pursue a market for off-planet manufacturing. It’s not the first company geared toward this market, but Varda is different in that it is focusing on flying standalone satellites rather than working on the International Space Station. The company’s founders identified pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and fiber optic manufacturing as the products that could most benefit from in-space manufacturing.

There’s a long waiting list for payloads and experiments to fly to the space station. Perhaps more importantly, there’s a limited capacity to return cargo from the station to Earth, a capability almost exclusively provided by SpaceX resupply missions flying to and from the orbiting research lab about three times per year.

It often takes 12 to 18 months for an experiment to be approved to fly on the space station. Varda aims to cut that time in half, according to Asparouhov.

Varda also won a contract with the US Air Force earlier this year to use its re-entry vehicles as test platforms for materials that could be used on hypersonic missiles and aircraft.

“The contract is a great dual-use of our vehicle, which will be focused on the development of small molecule pharmaceuticals,” Varda tweeted earlier this year.

FAA license pending

Varda is now working with Rocket Lab, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the military to schedule the mission’s return to Earth. The landing window opens July 17, but the actual return date is likely to move to later this month, he said.

“Now, we’re more in the phase of getting everything lined up between the satellite performing the deorbit burn, as well as the regulatory partners helping with airspace control, all the way down to the military resources that will be helping us with the actual retrieval on the range,” Asparouhov said in an interview.

Varda and its partners completed a rehearsal for the recovery in Utah in early June, about a week before the mission’s launch.

One item on Varda’s checklist that hasn’t been completed yet is the FAA’s approval of a commercial re-entry license application. Steven Kulm, an FAA spokesperson, confirmed Friday that the FAA has not yet issued a re-entry license to Varda.

The FAA ensures commercial launch and re-entry operations don’t endanger the public. The FAA has licensed 53 commercial launches so far in 2023 for SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Virgin Galactic, Virgin Orbit, Relativity Space, and ABL Space Systems. But it has only licensed five re-entries this year, all for SpaceX’s Dragon crew and cargo missions returning from the International Space Station.

Once its license is approved, Varda Space will become just the third company to receive a commercial FAA re-entry license and the first under streamlined commercial spaceflight regulations known as Part 450.

“We would be the first to operate within this new regulatory regime (for a re-entry),” Asparouhov said.

The FAA has worked for years to ease the impact of commercial space launches on air traffic over the United States. With launches becoming a regular occurrence at places like Cape Canaveral, Florida, air traffic controllers have reduced the amount of airspace restricted to commercial air traffic around spaceports. That results in fewer flights that have to be re-routed to avoid a launch hazard area.

Asparouhov said his company has worked with the FAA since its founding in 2020.

“As the United States builds this capability to do regular low-cost re-entry over land, how does that interface with commercial air traffic over the United States?” Asparouhov said. “How does (commercial air traffic) interact with regularly re-entering capsules? We’re really excited to forge that path forward with the FAA.” (3)

Featured Image Source:  Varda Space Industries and Rocket Labs

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