Like in a science fiction movie, a capsule with pharmaceuticals designed in space is in orbit waiting to return. The company has not received approval from the authorities for security reasons.
An American capsule has currently been stuck up there in orbit for several days. This capsule belongs to the startup Varda Space, its objective was to test the manufacturing of pharmaceutical products in space. The mission took off in mid-June, with on board everything needed to completely independently produce Ritonavir crystals, the basis of a drug against HIV.
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The whole point of being in space is the absence of gravity. Weightlessness allows for purer and larger crystals than on earth. Apparently everything went well. All that remained was to bring everything back to earth for analysis. But there is a blockage. The company has received neither federal aviation nor US Air Force authorization due to “security risks and a lack of impact analysis”.
Risks when landing
On both sides, we remain very discreet about the reasons. We may be concerned because that we are dealing with perhaps unknown chemicals. But there is a risk that the return of the capsule to earth will not be perfectly controlled, that it will deviate from its trajectory and end up hitting an inhabited area.
For the record, only two machines have so far been authorized to return to Earth by the American authorities: the SpaceX Dragon and the Boeing Starliner. Two ships responsible for bringing astronauts back from the international space station.
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These devices generally land in the open sea, far from any population. But the Varda Space capsule was expected on earth, on a military base in Utah. The safety conditions do not seem to be met and in reality, if the manufacturing in space needs to develop, this will be the main problem to solve. So that everything doesn’t get stuck in orbit!
Better drugs?
There really is a market for manufacturing products in space to come, as tests on the International Space Station have proven. These unique conditions would make it possible to create new and better drugs that limit side effects or which no longer need to be frozen. There would also be benefits for semiconductors and composite materials.
With the falling cost of space launches, the potential market is enormous, even if it has just experienced a serious false start.