The company has also positioned its W-series of spacecraft, which reenter at a maximum speed of Mach 25, as an ideal test bed for thermal protection materials, navigation, communications, and other sensors that could be flown operationally on hypersonic missiles.
Therefore, Varda’s three main lines of business are military applications, pharmaceutical research and manufacturing, and basic research in microgravity.
The latter is an interesting option at a time when NASA is rushing to manifest research experiments on board the International Space Station—which is due to retire in 2030—and commercial space stations have not yet come online (and may not for several years).
Humans in the loop?
For experiments that can be done without a human astronaut, Varda now offers a less expensive and faster way to get experiments done in space.
