The US Air Force recently rejected a request from Varda Aerospace Industries TechCrunch has learned that the company will land its capsule at a training area in Utah, delaying the startup’s plans to demonstrate the fruits of manufacturing in space. A US Air Force spokesman said the company is also still waiting to obtain re-entry authorization from the US Federal Aviation Administration.
Varda originally planned to return a capsule containing crystals of ritonavir, a drug used to treat HIV, in mid-July. After announcing the postponement, the company was eyeing September 5-7, a source told TechCrunch. This information was confirmed by the US Air Force.
The company declined to comment, however Published on X That “the spacecraft is intact in all systems” and that they are continuing to cooperate with regulators to return the capsule to Earth. They added that the spacecraft can survive up to a year in orbit.
“September. “Nos. 5 and 7 were primary targets,” a US Air Force spokesman said in an emailed statement. “The application to use the Utah Test and Training Range for the landing site has not been approved at this time due to a public safety, risk and impact analysis. In a separate process, the FAA has not granted re-entry authorization. All organizations continue to work to explore recovery options.”
The spokesperson also said that Varda is “working on presenting alternative plans,” but did not elaborate further on whether that meant seeking an alternative landing site. An FAA spokesperson did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for information about the reentry authorization by press time. On the FAA website, Only one commercial space re-entry license was listedFor SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.
Environmental assessment project The FAA’s March VARDA reentry mission states that VARDA initially considered six areas for landing the capsule: Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR); White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico; Fallon Range Training Complex in Nevada; Nevada Test and Training Range; Barry M. Goldwater Range in Arizona; and the Boardman Naval Weapons Systems Training Facility in Oregon.
UTTR was the only one that met all of Varda’s six-point site selection criteria, which included the ability to accommodate the entire 500-square-mile proposed landing area. UTTR has previously hosted other capsule recovery missions, including NASA’s Genesis sample return mission in 2004 and the Comet Stardust sampling mission in 2006.
But despite these precedents, Varda’s proposed return cadence – monthly by 2026 – is entirely new. This may be one reason why re-entry clearances take so long; In fact, an Air Force spokesman said the operation is intended to “set the right precedents” for future commercial re-entry activity.
“Our goal at Utah Test and Training remains to work with customers who request re-entry missions in a safe, secure and sustainable manner, to which Varda (and potential future partners) can tailor their investments, engagement and activities,” the spokesperson said. . “We also emphasize that this is a whole-of-government, inter-agency process to set the right precedents for future activities like this.”
Varda is using Rocket Lab’s Photon spacecraft for this mission and at least three other subsequent missions. A 120-kilogram Varda manufacturing capsule sits above the Photon, which provides power, data and attitude control for the mission. Upon re-entry, the Rocket Lab spacecraft will burn up in the atmosphere, while the Varda capsule will continue on its way, release parachutes, and land on Earth.