The capsule currently circling the earth with a South Australian connection

Published Jan 16, 2025, 5:38 AM

Listen live on the FIVEAA Player.

Follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.

Subscribe on YouTube

Right now orbiting the Earth is a capsule and it'll keep doing that for the next few weeks before it lands back down to Earth at the Cornibber Test Range here in South Australia. It is the first ever commercial spacecraft re entry in the country. And it's all happening as I say, out the Caniba Test Range, owned by Southern Launch and.

Lloyd damp is the CEO. Hello, Lloyd, how.

Are you really well? You start?

Yeah, good, thank you. This is so exciting.

Oh look, and it's the start of where we want to help Australian industry and Australian manufacturing grow. You know, the capsules coming down, we're demonstrating that it's possible. But ultimately what we want to do is get the pharmaceuticals, so the medicines that are manufacturing and the capsule out into Australian industry tree so that we can be the hub for this new grade technology.

Okay, So tell us about the capsule. What is in it? And you say it's medicines and technology. What exactly is it? What's it doing?

Yeah? Yeah, yeah, so's There's three other experiments that are going on with the capsule. The first one is they it can manufacture pharmaceutical drugs in zero gravity. So it turns out you turn off gravity and chemical reactions change compared to what happens on Earth. So they're going to be using it, using the capsule while on orbit to try and make a new type of pharmaceutical. The next one that they're going to do is when the capsule re enters. Vada have been working with NASA and they're producing new re entry tiles. So this is a new material that they putting. They put on the outside of the capsule and that's to demonstrate that this new material is really rugged and it can survive the incredibly hot temperatures that the capsule will experience as it comes down back from orbit. And the last experiment is there's a window in the back of the capsule and there's a special camera that will look through the window and as the capsule comes through the very very thin atmosphere at about ninety kilometers, this camera will help us gather will gather information on what the composition of the atmosphere is up at those high altitudes and further humanity's understanding of our world and yeah, get to know what's up there.

Yeah, Okay, So I don't know if this is a silly question, Lloyd, but why do we need medicines and pharmaceuticals to be developed in space? They aren't they better off here on the ground.

In a lab. No great question, and it's it's it's something that that we also scratched our heads a little bit when when we first heard about Vard and what they were trying to do. But it turns out that there's a couple of really good things that can happen when you turn off gravity. The first one is that the size of the pharmaceuticals, the drugs that you're manufacturing, are those molecules can potentially be smaller. If they're smaller, you that they can potentially be more efficient or effective in in in delivering the outcome in the human body, So you don't necessarily need to take as much of a of a medicine to get the effects. And where this is really exciting things like in the future cancer treatments. The current yeah that that the current pharmaceutical they're manufacturing is called retonovert, which is an HIV anti retroviral drug, and so they're trying to demonstrate that it can be made better in orbit than on Earth. So it's oh, you know, fast forward a couple of years and this type of technology will you know, revolutionize how we do how we do medicine and hopefully remove a lot of the horrible side effects we get with different drugs.

Yeah, okay, well there you go.

I didn't I didn't realize that was even a possibility.

So tell me how this is linked to SpaceX.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so SpaceX is the company that launched the capsule with turns out with I think it was around one hundred other sab lights yesterday morning from the West coast of the United States of America. On board that rocket was actually four fatlights with links back to Australia, the Vada capsule that will come down to the Kennebic Test Range, and three satellites from South Australian companies, which is very exciting. So SpaceX lifted all the satelights to orbit and then released them at around five hundred kilometers up from the surface of the Earth. So all of those satellites are now on orbit and the Vada satellite is the one that's then designed to re enter the Earth's atmosphere sometime next month.

So what does it look like.

Our good question. Good question. So at the moment, I'll say that the capsule, there's two components to the Varda let's call it satellite. There's a lovely white looks a bit like an acorn, you could say, re entry vehicle, and that's where the pharmaceuticals are currently being manufactured. And then sitting behind that is a little satellite. And that little sabllite is actually what puts the controls the white Varda re entry capsule, and it can lift the orbits of the capsule, so it can can if it's got an engine on board, and it can move it around in space a little bit. But very importantly, when it comes time for the capsule to return to Earth, that satellite will actually separate from the capsule and the capsule will then re enter and survive the the you know, slowing down in the Earth's atmosphere, and the stab light that sits behind it is designed to burn up and break up in the Earth atmosphere. So it's a one way trip for the satellite, but via to have manufactured their capsule so that it can be reused up to ten times.

That's great, okay, And so did you say it's an acorn size. I imagine it won't be easy to find.

Or acorn shape.

Oh shape, okay, okay.

Size, Yes, it's almost a meter in diameter.

Okay, a bit easier to find than an ahorn size.

And it's it's currently wonderfully white. But I kid you're not. When we recover it from the outback, it looked like a burnt marshmallow. Quite interesting.

Yeah, it's making it hungry, neat enough to know, okay, very cool. So then it'll it'll land in the canibit test range. Who's in charge of finding it? And then what happens to it from there? Does it have to get transported back.

To the US or do we have representatives from Varda Space here to collect it?

Yeah? Yeah, yeah, so it'll it'll come in from Antarctica. So if you're on the west coast of the Air Peninsula, we will let everybody know. You'll actually maybe be able to go outside and if it's a clear night, you'll see it come in like a shooting stuff. So yeah, so when we know a return date and a return time, we'll put up on our website and say, if you are awake, go outside, look in this direction and you might be able to see this beautiful streak go across the night sky. And we are working with the University of Southern Queensland and a couple of other companies who will then help us track the capsule as it re enters the atmosphere and this will tell us with very good accuracy where the capsule has landed in the outback will then go out with helicopters and recover the capsule and bring it back to our big hangar at the Sigina Airport where the Vada team will then undo all the bolts and open up the capsule and take out the pharmaceutical payload. That payload will at present it will go back to the US, but we're very much hoping that the capsule will be able to come back or could come to Adelaide and maybe a couple of other cities so that school kids around the nation can see something that not only went to space but came back to Australia. So yeah, this will be love it, oh kids and old kids and young kids, you could say, right for sure?

Yeah, So is this a once off or you mentioned that the capsule can be used up to ten times? Will we expect this now?

Well? So each capsule can be used up to ten times. We've currently got the next three VARDA reentries scheduled to come into the kenebicastrange. So we are working to make this a regular occurrence for the Australian industry. And you know, as I said at the start, like at the moment, these pharmaceuticals are going back to America. Our hope is that we can work with industries here in Australia so that they can be part of that broader supply chain. They can play a critical role in manufacturing more of these unique space drugs or distributing them out to a global consumer base.

And I assume there needs to be some sort of approval or.

Authorization for this or can anyone just you know, land a satellite any anywhere anywhere in South Australia They like no.

Look, it's been an interesting process because this reentry is regulated by both the Australian Space Agency so here in Australia and the American Federal Aviation Authority FAA. So we've been working with the Americans as well as our Space agency here to demonstrate that it'll be safe to perform this re entry into Australia and late last year both the Americans and our federal minister approved the re entry and so since then we've been working with the different airlines and maritime approval bodies to then, you know, put in place all the security measures to make sure that everyone is aware that this activity is occurring.

Great, very cool. Tom on the text line wants to know how much does all of this cost? Is any of this funded by taxpayers or is this all private operations?

So this is all funded through Varda. So Varda is an American company and they their core business is to manufacture pharmaceuticals on orbit, which they then sell into the big, big organizations that pay them to do this work.

Okay, so it's not there's no taxpayer money involved.

In Australia isn't involved in this, I'll say yet. I mean, our hope is that Australian industry gets involved in these types of activities in this advance manufacturing.

Yeah, oh well, keep us up to date, Lloyd. I'd love to see it, and especially if we can see it above the sky as it's heading towards its re entry, that would be very cool.

Yeah, definitely, thank you so much for having me on.

Today sounds good. Talk to you soon by Lloyd damp there, the CEO of Southern Launch. And this is the great thing now that we've got a bustling and vibrant space industry in South Australia and also Australia.

It was so good that we've got the Space Agency set up here a few years.

Ago because we get to see things like this happening a bit more regularly, which is very very.

Cool for us.

Five afternoons Swiss Stacey Lee

Afternoons with Stacey Lee

Join Stacey Lee for FIVEAA Afternoons as the award-winning journalist steps behind the mic discussin 
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 949 clip(s)