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.
Los Angeles-based Gitai said Tuesday that its autonomous robotic arm has nailed a tech demonstration outside the International Space Station.
Autonomous robotic systems still have a ways to go before they render human labor obsolete, especially here on Earth; but in space, human labor is expensive (and dangerous), which provides an opening for a robotic alternative.
The 1.5-meter autonomous robotic arm, which the startup calls S2, launched to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 in January.
In the nearer term, the company is targeting on-orbit satellite servicing for spacecraft in low Earth orbit and geostationary orbit.
The arm’s technology readiness level (TLR), a standard used by NASA to chart the maturity of technology, is now at 7, the highest level, Gitai said.
SpaceX is continuing to make progress on the development of Starship, the largest rocket ever built, with the third test flight Thursday accomplishing considerably more than the previous two tests.
The 400-foot-tall Starship rocket lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in southeastern Texas at 8:25 a.m. local time.
Although SpaceX has been developing Starship for years, this is only the third time the company has attempted an orbital mission.
The hot-staging technique was performed for the first time, ever, during the second Starship test flight last November.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk congratulated the team on X, saying, “Starship reached orbital velocity!”Starship reached orbital velocity!
Orbital Materials — founded by Jonathan Godwin, who previously was involved with DeepMind’s material research efforts — is creating an AI-powered platform that can be used to discover materials ranging from batteries to carbon dioxide-capturing cells.
Godwin says he was inspired to found Orbital Materials by seeing how the techniques underpinning AI systems like AlphaFold, DeepMind’s AI that can predict a protein’s 3D structure from its amino acid sequence, could be applied to the materials sciences.
“[Yet] demand for new advanced materials … is growing hugely as our economies become electrified and de-carbonized.”Orbital Materials isn’t the first to apply AI to materials R&D.
Osmium AI, led by an ex-Googler and backed by Y Combinator, enables industrial customers to predict the physical properties of new materials, then refine and optimize those new materials leveraging AI.
But what sets Orbital Materials apart is its proprietary AI model for materials science, Godwin claims.
Orbital operations company Astroscale has revealed new details about its approach to refueling satellites in space, as part of a $25.5 million project exploring the concept with the Space Force.
The concept of on-orbit servicing and repair is attractive to anyone who doesn’t want to see a $100 million investment literally burn up.
Astroscale won a Space Force contract last Summer to explore the possibility in orbit, and the company just published how it plans to do so.
After refueling it, the APS-R will back off and perform an inspection of the client satellite, looking for any fuel leaks or other issues its operators might want to check.
No doubt we’ll hear more about this and other space sustainability projects well before then.
This year was tough for many space companies, and we aren’t trying to paper that over with our optimism.
Advanced satellite operations demonstrationsIn the broadest possible terms, a huge portion of space startups are interested in increasing the number of things a satellite can do in space.
Another hot area of satellite operations involves in-space manufacturing and satellite reentry.
Next year, we expect to see more demonstrations from startups looking to execute state-of-the-art satellite operations.
2024 should be chock full of exciting tests and new developments from other companies looking to take their slice of the launch market.
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This demonstration mission may prove to be a case study in the difficulties of putting hardware on orbit for the first time.
In the blog post, the company dives into the problems it encountered — some even before the mission launched.
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