Varda Space Industries Planning Its First Space Factory To Orbit

Varda Space Industries, a startup aiming to establish in-space manufacturing facilities, will launch its first spacecraft into orbit in 2023 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The actual spacecraft Varda's first to reach orbit will be built by Rocket Lab, SpaceX's rival launch business, which will also build two future spacecraft for Varda. Two Varda-built modules will be installed on the three vehicles, a microgravity manufacturing module, and a re-entry capsule.

Each spacecraft is expected to spend about three months in orbit, with the reentry module returning around 40-60 kg of created goods. Varda's goal is to use the advantages of microgravity which can only be found in space for long periods of time to create new materials such as bio-printed organs and customized semiconductors. The startup believes that the market for such materials is large enough to justify the effort.

The spacecraft is just one of many things onboard the Falcon 9 rideshare mission, a unique and attractive scheme that allows customers to split the cost of flying to space by allowing them to carpool to space. For an individual customer wishing to deliver up to 200 kilograms of payload to sun-synchronous orbit, SpaceX claims to reduce the cost of launch to as little as $1 million.