fuels

Varda Space Industries has closed a massive tranche of funding just weeks after its first drug manufacturing capsule returned from orbit. The pair had an audacious goal to commercialize what until very recently was promising but ultimately small-scale research into the effects of microgravity on pharmaceutical crystals. Indeed, Varda’s first mission, which returned to Earth in February after 10-months in orbit, does not mark the first time a drug has been crystallized in microgravity. Astronauts have been conducting protein crystallization experiments in space for decades on the International Space Station and before that, the Space Shuttle. The startup’s next manufacturing mission will launch later this year, and the team plans to land that spacecraft in Australia.