WASHINGTON - Varda Space Industries has done it again, completing its latest reentry mission on May 18, proving that you can indeed have your pharmaceutical research and test your hypersonic technology too, all in one tidy little capsule.

The capsule from Varda's W-6 mission touched down early May 20 at the Koonibba Test Range in South Australia, operated by Southern Launch. This marks the fourth Varda capsule to grace that landing site in just 15 months. The spacecraft hitched a ride to orbit on the SpaceX Transporter-16 rideshare mission on March 30, because why launch dedicated when you can carpool?

This particular mission was funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory through its Prometheus program, which is apparently all about testing hypersonic technology using commercial spacecraft. One experiment tested autonomous navigation during reentry by staring at stars and low Earth orbit satellites - basically, the capsule played a game of celestial 'I Spy' to find its way home. Another featured temperature sensors embedded in the nose of the capsule, collecting data to be compared against models, because even in space, you need to check your assumptions. The capsule also carried two instrumented tiles provided by NASA, made using newfangled production techniques, because why not add a little extra science to the mix?

“Every reentry builds on the last. W-6 is another demonstration that frequent, low-cost, reliable return is easily accessible,” said Dave McFarland, vice president of hypersonic test and targets at Varda, in a statement that sounds suspiciously like a sales pitch. “The data our partners are taking home from this mission would have taken years to collect through traditional testing methods.” Translation: we're fast, cheap, and we've got the data to prove it.

Varda has found success in hypersonics because, it argues, it offers the ability to do testing less expensively than using missiles or rockets. Because who needs a multi-million-dollar missile when you can just drop a capsule from orbit and call it a day?

“The way to describe our defense business is delta-v arbitrage,” said Will Bruey, chief executive of Varda, during a session of the ASCEND conference here May 20. “We buy speed for cheap from Falcon 9, and we then sell it into a market that’s used to buying dedicated launches.” In other words, they're the arbitrageurs of the space economy, buying velocity wholesale and selling it retail.

The company uses the same spacecraft for missions to conduct microgravity research, notably pharmaceuticals. “Every vehicle that comes off the line can be used either for a commercial pharma mission or a defense mission,” he said. He estimated 80% of Varda’s capital allocation has gone into developing that spacecraft assembly line, with the other 20% going into its pharma lab. Because nothing says 'efficient business model' like a single assembly line that churns out both space drugs and hypersonic testbeds.

Varda announced May 13 an agreement with pharmaceutical company United Therapeutics to study development of novel formulations of drugs in microgravity, starting with treatments for rare pulmonary disease. Because if you're going to make drugs in space, you might as well start with the rare stuff.

Bruey said the companies started working together around the beginning of the year. Scientists at both companies have been reviewing United Therapeutics’ portfolio of drugs to see which ones would benefit from reformulation in microgravity and, of those, which would make economic sense. Because even in space, you have to run the numbers.

“The way our customers think about Varda is they think the space part is cool, but they really ultimately don’t care,” he said. “They’re in it for the better drugs. So, we’re not really a space company to them, we’re a drug company.” Because at the end of the day, it's all about the pills, not the rocket science.

Bruey said he expected Varda to fly its first drug for United Therapeutics in 2027. If that leads to positive results, the company would move into clinical testing. “The best-case scenario is that it’s 2030 when we inject the first person with the microgravity-enabled pharmaceutical,” he said. “It could be anywhere between 2030 and 2035.” So we're looking at roughly a decade before space drugs are a thing. Patience, people.

Once that happens, he said, “it’s impossible to ignore at that point. Space drugs are officially a thing,” with the promise that what is effective for one drug could work for many others. Because once you've proven you can make a better drug in space, the floodgates open.

“It’s very much ‘go big or go home’ at Varda,“ he said. “Either we revolutionize the pharma industry or we become a boring hypersonics company. There’s really no in-between.” And with that, Varda sets its sights on greatness or obscurity, with no middle ground in sight.