Varda flies W-8 and W-9 capsules on a single rideshare launch

Varda Space Industries, which works on orbital pharmaceutical processing and hypersonic reentry, has announced the launch of its W-8 and W-9 vehicles aboard SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

It is the first time Varda has launched two spacecraft on the same rocket.

Varda has previously operated two vehicles on orbit at the same time, but launching W-8 and W-9 together marks a move to fleet operations as the company raises its launch and reentry cadence. The two vehicles will be managed in tandem from Varda's newly expanded Mission Operations facility in El Segundo.

"For in-space manufacturing to be a real industry, we need to operate like one: high cadence, low cost per mission, and systems that don't need a human in the loop for every decision," said Wendy Shimata, VP of Autonomous Systems at Varda. "We talk a lot about making reentry go from novel to normal. Flying two vehicles on the same launch vehicle is exactly that kind of normalization."

Varda has been steadily increasing its mission cadence and has safely reentered six capsules since 2024. The team has grown to develop the operational infrastructure needed to manage multiple vehicles on orbit at once, to meet the needs of the company's terrestrial pharmaceutical and government partners.

Both W-8 and W-9 carry payload manifests spanning commercial and government customers. Flying subsystems and materials through real hypersonic reentry conditions gives researchers data that cannot be replicated on the ground.

W-8's interior payload is provided by Canopy Aerospace and Defense, a provider of thermal protection systems and signal attenuation materials. Canopy's Smart TPS-F payload monitors the condition of a spacecraft's heat shield during reentry, using fiber-optic sensors to measure temperature, heat flux and recession.

W-8's exterior surfaces host next-generation thermal protection materials funded through two partners: a government program that funds hypersonic testing, and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), which funds payloads through the Prometheus program, a partnership between AFRL and commercial reentry testbed providers.

W-9's interior payload is a navigation system designed to collect data during hypersonic flight, and is also funded through a government program.

W-9's exterior hosts heatshield materials from Syensqo. The nose tile is embedded with small samples of next-generation composite materials being developed to advance ablative technologies.

"Launching W-8 and W-9 together is a turning point for us. Varda has been building toward the ability to launch, operate, and return multiple vehicles at once since W-1," said Brandi Sippel, VP of Mission Management. "The number of annual launches and reentries will only increase from here."

The ability to build, launch, operate and return multiple vehicles at once is foundational to Varda's long-term business, the company said. More vehicles on orbit means more frequent returns, more data per mission, and a more resilient pipeline for bringing products home.

Varda is headquartered in El Segundo, California, with offices in Washington, D.C. and Huntsville, Alabama.

CONTACT: Alex Pearlman, Head of Communications and Marketing, Varda Space Industries, [email protected]