SpaceX’s new Starfall program offers validation and competition for reentry startups - SpaceNews

Close

Search for:

Search

Close

Skip to content

Menu

Sign In

Open Search

Search for:

Search

Home / SpaceX’s new Starfall program offers validation and competition for reentry startups

The capsule from Varda Space Industries’ W-6 mission after landing the Koonibba Test Range in South Australia in May. Credit: Southern Launch

Demand for microgravity research and manufacturing is brewing — perhaps literally.

When SpaceX launched the first test flight of Starfall, its commercial reentry capsule, on June 23, the company did not disclose what payloads, if any, were in the spacecraft. A day later, though, one company stepped forward: Starbase Brewing, a Texas brewery that produces SpaceX-themed beers such as “Starhopped” and “Occupy März.”

The company said it flew a payload called the Brewery Archive Space Exposure Demonstrator to test how a variety of yeasts responded to exposure to the space environment during the several-hour mission.

Novelty space beer is probably not the killer app for microgravity research, but it does illustrate the breadth of interest in using space to produce items not possible on Earth.

While some of that work can be done on the International Space Station and its commercial successors, a growing number of startups in the United States, Europe and Asia are developing spacecraft to serve that demand. Those spacecraft would host payloads and return the results to Earth in secure containers called reentry capsules.

SpaceX’s entry into the market threatens those companies, in much the same way that SpaceX disrupted the launch industry with Falcon 9 and its rideshare missions. But reentry firms have a far more complex relationship with SpaceX than a typical competitor: SpaceX is also a key provider of launch services at a time when getting to orbit is becoming increasingly difficult.

ENOS, the first reentry spacecraft built by Reditus Space, is scheduled to launch later this year on a SpaceX rideshare mission. Credit: Reditus Space.

From pharma to hypersonics

Companies working in the reentry field have pursued payloads low in mass but high in value, making it easier to close their business cases. That has meant focusing on pharmaceuticals and advanced materials, offering capabilities that can’t be reproduced on Earth.

Varda Space Industries, which has flown six missions to date, has followed the pharma path. Will Bruey, chief executive of the company, cited research done on the ISS several years ago involving the cancer treatment drug Keytruda. “By crystallizing in microgravity, there was a path to changing the formulation from an IV bag to a shot, which is huge for patients,” he said at the ASCEND conference in May.

“The way to think about Varda is we’ve invested this in zero-gravity pharma equipment,” he said, which it in turn offers to companies. Varda announced in May a partnership with United Therapeutics where they will study formulating new drugs in microgravity, starting with treatments for rare pulmonary diseases.

“It shows that space drugs have gone from research for science’s sake to research and development for patients’ sake,” he said of that deal. “They’re certainly not paying us for new science. They’re paying us for drugs into patients.”

Outpost, another company working on reentry vehicles, is interested in optical fiber production in microgravity. Jason Dunn, chief executive of the company, had worked on producing high-quality optical fibers in microgravity with his previous company, Made In Space, but ran into reentry as a time- and cost-intensive bottleneck.

“When we made the first fiber optics on the space station, it took many months to return it,” he said.

“Fiber has always been one of the interesting first products to go after because the market there is able to absorb today’s launch cost,” he said. “There’s also a lot of room to increase the supply of those fibers at lower prices to the market as launch cost comes down.”

Those companies have found interest not just in their microgravity capabilities but also the ability to return.

Varda has flown several payloads for Defense Department organizations testing technology in a hypersonic environment that would otherwise require a dedicated sounding rocket or missile launch.

“The way to describe our defense business is delta-v arbitrage,” Bruey said. “We buy speed for cheap from Falcon 9, and we then sell it into a market that’s used to buying dedicated launches.”

Outpost has received military interest in technology the company has developed to enable pinpoint landings that can be repurposed for use deploying cargo from aircraft and high-altitude balloons.

“They recognized that we have a precision landing system,” said Amir Blachman, president of Outpost. “They asked, ‘Can we buy this separate from the space system?’ So, we’ve packaged that separately now as an early revenue line.”

Other...