{"id":49186,"date":"2025-05-14T17:24:34","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T09:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/varda-space-capsule-successfully-returns-to-earth-after-hypersonic-reentry-test\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T17:24:34","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T09:24:34","slug":"varda-space-capsule-successfully-returns-to-earth-after-hypersonic-reentry-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/varda-space-capsule-successfully-returns-to-earth-after-hypersonic-reentry-test\/","title":{"rendered":"Varda Space Capsule Successfully Returns to Earth After Hypersonic Reentry Test"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><strong>Varda Space Industries<\/strong>&nbsp;on Tuesday said its W-3 capsule successfully landed in South Australia following two months on orbit in a test of an inertial measurement technology in the high-hypersonic reentry environment.<\/p>\n<p>Varda partnered with the <strong>U.S. Air Force<\/strong> on the mission under the Prometheus program, in which the two are collaborating on to rapidly conduct technology experiments in the extreme reentry environment. The W-3 reentered Earth\u2019s atmosphere at speeds exceeding Mach 25 before deploying a parachute for landing at the Kooniba Test Range at 19:07 PDT.<\/p>\n<p>The advanced inertial measurement unit was developed by the Air Force and&nbsp;Innovative Scientific Solutions Incorporated. The IMU was designed to operate at the high reentry speeds but this was the first test in that environment.<\/p>\n<p>The W-3 capsule was launched on March 14 aboard a&nbsp;SpaceX&nbsp;Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., as part of the Transporter-13 rideshare mission. The 120-kilogram reentry vehicle was integrated with&nbsp;Rocket Lab\u2019s medium delta-V Pioneer spacecraft platform that delivered the capsule back to Earth. Pioneer provides power, communications, propulsion, and attitude control.<\/p>\n<p>Launch of the W-3 mission came 15 days after the successful reentry and landing of Varda\u2019s W-2 mission under the Prometheus program that carried Varda\u2019s pharmaceutical reactor, a thermal protection system developed with NASA, and a spectrometer from the Air Force Research Laboratory. Rocket Lab\u2019s Pioneer satellite bus also supported the W-2 mission.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVarda\u2019s reentry capsule represents a game changing opportunity for both government and commercial partners to test and validate cutting-edge hypersonic and reentry components and technologies,\u201d David McFarland, vice president of Hypersonic and Reentry Test at Varda, said in a statement. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>This story was first published by Defense Daily<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Varda Space Industries&nbsp;on Tuesday said its W-3 capsule successfully landed in South Australia following two months on orbit in a test of an inertial measurement technology in the high-hypersonic reentry environment. Varda partnered with the U.S. Air Force on the mission under the Prometheus program, in which the two are collaborating on to rapidly conduct [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}