Varda Space Industries announced on November 28th the successful launch of its fifth mission, W-5. The launch occurred from Vandenberg Space Force Base aboard a SpaceX Transporter-15 rideshare mission. Transporter-15 took flight at 1:44 p.m. Eastern time, carrying a total of 140 small satellites. W-5 was among these, marking the latest step in Varda's endeavor to create "space factories" designed to utilize microgravity for manufacturing materials in orbit and subsequently returning them to Earth.
The El Segundo-based startup aims to produce high-value products that significantly benefit from the unique conditions of zero gravity. This is particularly focused on pharmaceuticals, which can crystallize more purely in the space environment. W-5 is the newest addition to the company’s “W-Series” – a line of free-flying reentry vehicles engineered to orbit Earth, carry out on-orbit processing, and safely return space-made materials.
With the W-5 now operational in orbit, Varda is for the first time running two W-Series vehicles simultaneously in space, W-4 having launched previously in June. A key component of the mission includes a U.S. government payload, funded through the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Prometheus program. This payload is intended to test hypersonic survivability and the performance of various materials.
AFRL utilizes commercial reentry systems such as Varda’s to subject components, sensors, and prototype materials to the severe thermal and mechanical stresses encountered at hypersonic speeds. Varda’s capsule re-enters the atmosphere at approximately 18,000 miles per hour, surpassing Mach 25 before deploying its parachute for landing. While details of the W-5 government experiment have not been revealed, Varda has previously conducted AFRL-funded tests on its W-2 and W-3 missions.
“With W-5, AFRL and Varda again demonstrated that hypersonic flight testing can be done routinely and affordably,” stated Brandi Sippel, vice president of mission management at Varda Space Industries.
The W-5 vehicle comprises three core components: the hypersonic reentry capsule, a satellite bus providing essential power, navigation, and propulsion, and an ablative C-PICA heatshield designed to protect the spacecraft during peak heating. These vehicles are all manufactured at Varda’s facility in El Segundo. AFRL has awarded Varda a multi-year Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract, securing access to reentry flights at least through 2028. Through this IDIQ, AFRL can commission Varda to fly experimental payloads, gather reentry data, and return hardware for thorough analysis, effectively treating the commercial capsules as a repeatable hypersonic test range. This approach allows for an increased testing cadence without significant infrastructural investments.