Varda’s first capsule, W-1, after touchdown in Utah in February 2024
John Kraus/Varda
Someday this week, a 1-metre-wide capsule will fall from the sky and land within the South Australian desert carrying a cargo of medicine.
Since launching on a SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg Area Pressure Base in California on 14 January, a reactor on board the capsule has been manufacturing an undisclosed, proprietary pharmaceutical compound.
Varda, the US-based firm that constructed the capsule, is aiming to indicate that producing medicine in low Earth orbit…
