{"id":200637,"date":"2024-12-02T17:24:44","date_gmt":"2024-12-02T23:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/u-s-air-force-awards-varda-48-million-to-test-payloads-on-reentry-capsules"},"modified":"2024-12-02T17:24:44","modified_gmt":"2024-12-02T23:24:44","slug":"u-s-air-force-awards-varda-48-million-to-test-payloads-on-reentry-capsules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/u-s-air-force-awards-varda-48-million-to-test-payloads-on-reentry-capsules","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Air Force awards Varda $48 million to test payloads on reentry capsules"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/u-s-air-force-awards-varda-48-million-to-test-payloads-on-reentry-capsules.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 Varda Space Industries secured a $48 million contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to test military payloads on the company\u2019s reentry capsules.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/varda-space-industries-raises-90-million\/\">A California-based startup<\/a> focused on in-space manufacturing, Varda Space developed a factory-in-orbit spacecraft \u2014 a compact, 120-kilogram satellite engineered to produce high-value materials such as pharmaceuticals in zero-gravity conditions. The materials are returned to Earth in a capsule built with advanced thermal protection materials developed by NASA to withstand reentry.<\/p>\n<p>The four-year deal with AFRL, announced on Nov. 26, leverages Varda\u2019s W-Series reentry capsules as platforms to test payloads at hypersonic speeds. The spacecraft are built on Rocket Lab\u2019s Photon satellite bus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 Varda Space Industries secured a $48 million contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to test military payloads on the company\u2019s reentry capsules. A California-based startup focused on in-space manufacturing, Varda Space developed a factory-in-orbit spacecraft \u2014 a compact, 120-kilogram satellite engineered to produce high-value materials such as pharmaceuticals in zero-gravity conditions. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2028],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military","category-satellites"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}