The “return authorisation” is the first ever granted locally and will see three capsules created by Californian company Varda eventually land at the South Australian facility operated by Southern Launch.
It comes after the deal was first announced 12 months ago and also significantly follows the passing into law of the “TSA” treaty to enable more US rockets to blast off or land in Australia.
Enrico Palermo, head of the Australian Space Agency, hailed the granting of the permit as “historic” and added it would send a “powerful signal” of the country’s potential.
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“We have always had geographic advantages that make us a desirable place for launch and returns, but the introduction of our Technology Safeguards Agreement (TSA) with the US is accelerating that growth,” he said.
Varda believes “in-space manufacturing” could lead to the development of “lifesaving treatments” because of the natural advantages of being away from Earth, including microgravity and a vacuum.
The company partners with the commercial pharmaceutical industry to develop “net-new formulations of small molecules and biologics” which it hopes will lead to revolutionary treatments.
Scheduled for early 2025, the first of the W-Series re-entry missions, W-2, will include payloads from NASA and other US government partners, along with Varda’s internal research.
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Will Bruey, Varda’s CEO, said his company was “honoured to perform Australia’s first commercial space re-entry”.
“Australia is clear-eyed about the promise of orbital pharmaceutical processing, and Southern Launch has led the way for the future of space infrastructure on Earth,” he said.
The company’s first-ever capsule only landed in the Utah desert in February and was part of a Rocket Lab Photon spacecraft launched in June 2023 on SpaceX’s Transporter-8 rideshare mission.
The re-entry required a “series of manoeuvres by the main spacecraft to go from a circular to an elliptical orbit”, before it released the capsule just before re-entry. The spacecraft itself then burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Varda had planned to return the capsule last July but encountered delays in getting clearance from the US Federal Aviation Administration and approvals from the US Air Force.
The Australian touchdown has also been delayed from a planned date of mid-2024.
The Koonibba Test Range, meanwhile, is an ideal venue because it’s designed to allow companies to recover their rockets and payloads.
The site covers more than 41,000 square kilometres of uninhabited land and is operated in conjunction with the Koonibba Community Aboriginal Corporation.
It’s also significantly separate from Southern Launch’s more traditional Whalers Way Complex at the tip of the Eyre Peninsula, which specialises in orbital launches over the sea.
Adam Thorn
Adam is a journalist who has worked for more than 40 prestigious media brands in the UK and Australia. Since 2005, his varied career has included stints as a reporter, copy editor, feature writer and editor for publications as diverse as Fleet Street newspaper The Sunday Times, fashion bible Jones, media and marketing website Mumbrella as well as lifestyle magazines such as GQ, Woman’s Weekly, Men’s Health and Loaded. He joined Momentum Media in early 2020 and currently writes for Australian Aviation and World of Aviation.
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