JAKARTA - SpaceX has announced its partnership with Varda Space to launch the first space plant. Space company CEOs, like Elon Musk, have visionary ideas for the future that include the industrialization of space.
Those who support the notion that industries moving into space will end pollution on Earth and that the benefits that manufacturing has in microgravity environments should be reaped.
Varda Space grew very fast in a very short time. It started in December 2020 with only US$9 million in seed funding. Compared to the millions used by the space sector every day, few see how the company will achieve its goal of building a space factory for Earth-bound products.
Eight months later the company received $42 million in funding and began setting up shops and building relationships with leading aerospace companies to realize its vision.
Varda Space Industries announced that it has now partnered with SpaceX to launch and put the first space plant in orbit in the first quarter of 2023.
SpaceX will provide rapid travel to low-Earth orbit with the Falcon 9. The company will install its first spacecraft on several Photon spacecraft provided by Rocket Lab. Varda Space adds that not only is this an orbiting laboratory, but they are building the first zero-gravity commercial industrial park on a large scale.
Varda Space will initially connect at least three Photon spacecraft. Spaceships can be configured for different purposes. Unlike the ISS, Varda will adapt it for autonomous manufacturing in space that does not require a human presence.
The aircraft will be equipped with a reentry capsule that will return manufactured products back to Earth once production is complete. The first plant would only be able to produce a few hundred kilos of material, leaving many to wonder what kinds of products Varda would produce to remain profitable.
The company explained it will focus on high-value products that sell for high prices despite low mass. Elements of chemical purity, perfect crystal structures, semiconductors, fiber optic cables, and pharmaceutical materials are some of the products that can be produced more efficiently in space, or whose purity levels are dramatically increased in microgravity manufacturing.
“We are one step closer to delivering valuable materials to our clients here on Earth,” said Will Bruey, CEO of Varda Space Industries, as quoted by Screenrant. Bruey, founder of Varga Space, spent nearly a decade working at SpaceX on the Drago Crew and Dragon Cargo spacecraft.
The company ensures that the products they will manufacture will improve the quality of life for people on Earth and accelerate the expansion of mankind into the stars. Their free-flying space factory is a game changer, it will be up and running not in 5 or 10 years but in less than 18 months.
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