Varda gets reentry license for space manufacturing capsule

After months of effort and one rejected application, Varda Space Industries said Feb. 14 it has received a license from the Federal Aviation Administration to return a capsule from its first mission. The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation issued a reentry license for Varda’s W-Series 1 spacecraft. The license will allow the company to land a capsule from that spacecraft at the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) and neighboring Dugway Proving Ground west of Salt Lake City. Varda said that reentry is scheduled for Feb. 21. “We’ve been working closely with our government partners and our satellite partner, Rocket Lab, to ensure a safe and compliant return from space,” Varda said in a statement. “Today we’re excited to announce the FAA has approved a re-entry attempt for Feb 21st.” Varda launched W-Series 1, its first spacecraft, in June on the SpaceX Transporter-8 rideshare mission. The company performed experiments to test the production of crystals in microgravity, which would be returned to Earth in a capsule developed by Varda attached to the Rocket Lab-produced spacecraft. The company had hoped to return the capsule as early as mid-July, but said then was still working with the FAA to obtain a reentry license, required for any commercial spacecraft returning to Earth. One issue the company said it was facing was that it was the first company seeking a reentry license under new regulations called Part 450 intended to streamline the licensing process, but which some companies reported difficulties adjusting to.

Varda Space Industries' W-Series 1 spacecraft includes a capsule designed to return pharmaceutical experiments. Credit: Varda Space Industries

In October, the company said it had come close in early September to getting an FAA reentry license as well as securing approval from the U.S. Air Force, which operates UTTR. “It was ultimately a coordination problem amongst three different groups that had not worked through this operation before,” Delian Asparouhov, co-founder of Varda, said in an interview at the time.

“This is the first time in our nation’s history that the FAA has granted a Part 450 reentry license, and licensed a commercial entity to land a spacecraft on U.S. soil,” Varda said in its statement about the license. “We are incredibly proud to have this opportunity with our government partners, and appreciate their dedication to safe innovation in the United States.”

The conical capsule, about 90 centimeters across and 74 centimeters high, weighs less than 90 kilograms, as described in a section of an environmental assessment about the reentry. The capsule landing area is an ellipse 45 by 35 kilometers covering parts of UTTR and the neighboring Dugway Proving Ground. The main spacecraft would also reenter and burn up, with only small pieces surviving reentry.

According to the environmental assessment, several ranges run by the Department of Defense in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Utah were considered as potential landing sites for the capsule, as they offered controlled access not available elsewhere, such as public lands maintained by the Bureau of Land Management. Only the UTTR/Dugway met all the requirements to safely return the capsule.

The assessment noted that non-U.S. locations were ruled out from consideration for this mission because of the “time, uncertainty, and complexity associated with obtaining the necessary agreements” between the U.S. and the foreign government for the landing, as well as challenging shipping the capsule back to the United States.

However, Varda announced in October an agreement with Southern Launch, a spaceport operator based in Adelaide, Australia, to host capsule returns at the Koonibba Test Range northwest of Adelaide. That range could be used for Varda’s second mission, scheduled for as soon as mid-2024.

FAA issues license for Georgia spaceport

The Federal Aviation Administration awarded a license Dec. 20 to a proposed commercial launch site in Georgia, but that facility still faces legal and business challenges. The FAA issued a launch site operators license, also known as a spaceport license, to Camden County, Georgia, for the proposed Spaceport Camden. The license came after years of environmental reviews of the site that slowed the licensing process, as well as the county’s decision two years ago to focus on small launch vehicles rather than larger ones originally envisioned for the site. The license came after a formal “record of decision” by the FAA regarding those environmental reviews. The document outlined the assessed environmental impacts of the proposed site, supporting a dozen launches a year of small launch vehicles, and the measures required to mitigate those effects, concluding that “all practicable means to avoid or minimize environmental harm from the Selected Alternative have been adopted.” County officials, who have invested an estimated $10 million into spaceport plans, hailed the decision as a boost to the area’s economy. “This once in a generation opportunity will provide a new frontier of economic prosperity for Camden, the region and the state of Georgia,” said Steve Howard, county administrator and project leader for the spaceport, in a statement. The license is a necessary but not sufficient step toward enabling launches from the site. Any company that seeks to launch from Spaceport Camden would have to get an FAA launch license, a process that includes environmental reviews. The terms of the license also prohibit the county from entering into an agreement with a launch provider until the county has a purchase or lease agreement for the property where the launch facility would be built.

An earlier concept for Spaceport Camden in Georgia. While the FAA issued a license for the spaceport, the site still faces legal and business obstacles. Credit: Spaceport Camden

The county has an agreement with Union Carbide, the company owns the property, to purchase it. However, a petition signed by several thousand county residents seeks a referendum on whether to allow the county to spend any money acquiring the property. A state court is reviewing the petition to see if the referendum should go forward in early 2022 and also whether to block the county from acquiring the land in the meantime. Should the referendum pass, it would effectively kill the project.

Another challenge for the county is identifying potential users of the spaceport. While there are dozens of small launch vehicles under development, none has formally committed to launching from Spaceport Camden.

The county statement about the FAA license included a quote from James Cantrell, chief executive of Phantom Space, which is working on a small launcher. “Phantom Space is thrilled to see Spaceport Camden open for business,” he said. “The additional launch capacity aligns well to our efforts to make access to space commonplace with reliable and responsive space transportation systems.”

Cantrell was previously chief executive of Vector, which conducted a low-altitude test flight of a vehicle prototype from the Spaceport Camden site in 2017. He departed Vector in 2019 when the company lost financing, leading eventually to Vector’s bankruptcy and liquidation. Earlier this month, the liquidating trustee for Vector filed suit in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware against Cantrell for breach of fiduciary duty during Cantrell’s time as chief executive, alleging “disloyal and systematic looting of Vector for his own personal financial gain in order to fund Cantrell’s personal racing hobby and other business ventures unrelated to Vector.”

Spaceport Camden backers have argued that demand for small launches can’t be met by other spaceports, notably Cape Canaveral. However, small launch vehicle company Astra Space announced Dec. 6 it would perform its next launch from Space Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in January. That facility was previously used for Athena launches but had been idle in recent years other than an Orion launch abort test in 2019.