Varda Space Industries, a California-based space manufacturing startup, has successfully completed its third mission with the landing of its W-3 reentry capsule at the Koonibba Test Range in South Australia. The milestone, achieved on May 13, marks a significant step forward in the company's efforts to support hypersonic technology research and U.S. national security interests in space.
The W-3 mission focused on collecting vital data for military hypersonic research and reentry technologies. The capsule carried an inertial measurement unit (IMU) developed by Innovative Scientific Solutions Incorporated (ISSI) for the U.S. Air Force. Designed to operate in the most extreme conditions, the capsule reentered Earth’s atmosphere at speeds exceeding Mach 25 — over 25 times the speed of sound.
“This extreme environment offers researchers valuable data to enhance hypersonic navigation, expand orbital economy applications, and support U.S. national security objectives in low Earth orbit,” said Dave McFarland, Varda’s vice president of hypersonic and reentry test.
Inertial measurement units are critical for navigation in space, as well as for military aircraft, missiles, and drones, especially in GPS-denied or compromised environments. By enduring real reentry conditions, the IMU on W-3 captured data that would be impossible to obtain through ground-based simulations.
The W-3 capsule was launched on March 14 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, riding aboard a spacecraft built using Rocket Lab's Pioneer satellite bus. This marks the second Varda capsule to touch down at the Koonibba Test Range, following the W-2 mission on February 28, which carried an Air Force Research Laboratory payload to study plasma environments during reentry.
Varda’s first mission, W-1, made history in 2024 by completing the first commercial reentry on U.S. soil when it landed in Utah.
With three successful missions now under its belt, Varda Space is ramping up its efforts to make reentry testing more accessible and cost-effective. The company aims to increase mission frequency and build a sustainable platform for hypersonic and space-based technology experimentation.
“The W-3 mission will provide unprecedented data to advance next-generation space and defense capabilities and continue to provide hypersonic environments to the reentry test community,” McFarland added.
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