The company installed a camera on its private capsule W-1 to capture its first mission back to Earth.
The nearly 30-minute video, published on YouTube, includes footage of the spacecraft separating in orbit, a "flaming" atmospheric reentry, and a somewhat rough landing at a military range in Utah. According to Ars Technica, W-1 spent about 8 months in low Earth orbit until Varda Space obtained all the regulatory approvals for landing in the United States.
"The video from our capsule, penetrating the atmosphere at 25 Mach speed - raw unprocessed footage," wrote Varda Space in the video description.
Here's a video of our capsule ripping through the atmosphere at mach 25, no renders, raw footage: pic.twitter.com/ZFWzdjBwad
— Varda Space Industries (@VardaSpace) February 28, 2024
Varda, which collaborated with Rocket Lab on this mission, is working on developing mini laboratories that can produce pharmaceutical drugs in orbit - in this case, the drug Mitonovir for treating HIV infection (the development will be further analyzed by Improved Pharma, based in Indiana).
Researchers have already found that protein crystals grown in space can form more perfect structures compared to those grown on Earth. The resulting substances can be used to create drugs that the human body could absorb more easily, or overall more effective drugs with a longer shelf life. One of the key examples of research conducted on the ISS is the active ingredient pembrolizumab, used in Keytruda cancer immunotherapy drugs (crystals formed in space allowed to create a more stable drug that can be administered by a short injection, rather than the long intravenous infusion currently used).
Capsule W-1 was launched on Falcon 9 in June 2023. Before entering the atmosphere, it was attached to the Rocket Lab Photon spacecraft, which provided power, communication, and altitude control, and after separating from the capsule, burned up in the atmosphere.
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