Varda W-5 Capsule Completes In-House System Demonstration in South Australia

Varda Space Industries successfully completed its W-5 mission with the reentry and recovery of its wholly in-house designed spacecraft on January 29, 2026, US time. The capsule concluded a nine-week orbital flight by landing safely at the Koonibba Test Range in South Australia, a facility managed by Southern Launch.

The W-5 mission, launched aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-15 rideshare mission on November 28, 2025, marked Varda’s first use of a fully internal satellite bus design, a shift from previous missions that incorporated third-party structures, such as those from Rocket Lab. Central to this vertical integration was the internally manufactured heat shield, constructed from C-PICA (Conformal Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator), a material advanced through a NASA Tipping Point award. This in-house heat shield production allowed Varda to control critical reentry technologies, demonstrating capability to withstand conditions exceeding Mach 25 and temperatures reaching 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Nick Cialdella, Chief Technology Officer at Varda Space Industries, stated that owning the entire system—from the spacecraft and capsule to operations—enables faster iteration and more frequent flights. The W-5 capsule carried a specialized payload for the U.S. Navy, funded under the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Prometheus Program. This program utilizes low-cost, high-cadence flight tests to accelerate the validation of hypersonic technologies and reentry systems. Previous Prometheus missions, W-2 and W-3, provided data on the plasma reentry environment, with W-3 carrying the first Department of Defense payload, OSPREE, to record optical emission measurements past Mach 15.

The successful recovery at Koonibba reinforces South Australia’s standing as a venue for commercial orbital reentry operations. Southern Launch CEO Lloyd Damp noted that each successful return strengthens Australia’s reputation for reliable landings. Varda and Southern Launch formalized this relationship with an agreement, announced September 30, 2025, at the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney, to support 20 additional landings at Koonibba through 2028. This agreement, supported by the Australia-US Technology Safeguarding Agreement, facilitates Varda’s business focus on manufacturing pharmaceuticals in microgravity.

Varda Space Industries, founded in January 2021 and based in El Segundo, California, is prioritizing customer missions like W-5 and W-6 to maintain operational momentum, despite the cancellation of W-4’s reentry in December 2025 for fuel system evaluation. The company maintains a goal of achieving a near-monthly flight cadence by the end of 2028, a target supported by the agreement with Southern Launch. The reentry, observed by witnesses as a green fireball before the parachute deployment, demonstrated the high precision and resilience of the Varda system.