Rocket Lab USA, Inc.’s third Pioneer spacecraft for Varda Space Industries, Inc. is successfully operating on-orbit—the W-3 mission launched on March 14th from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
The new mission is underway on-orbit just 15 days after the successful re-entry and landing of Varda’s W-2 mission, which was also powered by Rocket Lab’s Pioneer Spacecraft.
Rocket Lab’s Pioneer spacecraft supports Varda’s 120 kg manufacturing capsule on-orbit, providing power, communications, propulsion, and attitude control for the mission. Inside the capsule, Varda carries out in-space manufacturing and processing of pharmaceutical products that benefit from the microgravity environment that is impossible to recreate on Earth.
The Pioneer spacecraft leverages Rocket Lab’s vertically integrated spacecraft components and subsystems, including spacecraft propulsion, flight software, avionics, reaction wheels, star trackers, separation system, solar panels, radios, composite structures and tanks, and more.
Once Varda’s in-space manufacturing processes are completed on-orbit, Rocket Lab conducts in-space operations, deorbiting, and reentry positioning maneuvers to set the capsule on a reentry course to Earth for landing at the Koonibba Test Range in South Australia, operated by Southern Launch. The W-3 mission is Rocket Lab’s third for Varda. The first, W-1, was successfully completed in February 2024 and landed in the Utah desert, while the latest mission, W-2, was completed and landed in south Australia on Feb. 27, 2025.
The Company’s fourth contracted Pioneer spacecraft for Varda is currently undergoing final assembly at Rocket Lab’s Spacecraft Production Complex and Headquarters in Long Beach, California.
courtesy of the company
Sir Peter Beck, Rocket Lab Founder and CEO, said, “The W-1 mission was the first in-space manufacturing mission to happen outside of the International Space Station. Now, just over a year later, we have a third mission on orbit after bringing another one safely back home. We’re immensely proud to have supported our mission partner Varda to usher in a new era of rapid, reliable, and innovative commercial in-space manufacturing and hypersonic reentry capability.”
“It’s remarkable that we have been able to launch our third mission in such rapid succession after the reentry of our second. High cadence launch and return will soon be commonplace, and reentry of materials from space to Earth will go from being novel to being normal,” said Wendy Shimata, VP of Autonomous Systems at Varda.