Varda Space Industries

This is what our engineers built. Then they launched it. Then it came back. Varda operates the world’s only commercial orbital manufacturing and reentry platform. We’ve flown six missions, and still have three more this year. We’re building the fleet now and we need more engineers to do it. Apply online at varda.com/careers

In 1984, a UAB biochemist named Charles Bugg sent lysozyme crystals to space. Lysozyme, a protein found in egg whites, has been a model system for crystallography for decades. Bugg was trying to see whether microgravity changed how proteins assembled into crystals. When he got the results back, it changed his perspective. The crystals that had come back from the space shuttle were much larger than anything he had grown in his terrestrial lab. The x-ray diffraction data was sharp enough to enhance structural resolution, to the point where it was enough to see binding sites and molecular geometry that he couldn't see with Earth-grown crystals. That result was due to the change in convection in space. On Earth, fluid around growing protein crystals doesn't stay still — the crystal is growing in a turbulent microenvironment due to our gravitational pull. The result is disordered crystals. By removing gravity, molecules can diffuse slowly and uniformly. Bugg published, others repeated it and over time, the science held through the repetition. What didn't hold was the access model. Over the next few decades, getting a payload to the ISS for crystallization work meant competing for crew time, and scheduling windows that could be 2-3 years (or more) out. Pharmaceutical companies can't build a manufacturing process on that cadence any more than it could build one on the result of a single benchtop experiment. 40 years after Charles Bugg, Varda flew Ritonavir, a drug with one of the most famous polymorph failures in history, on a mission specifically designed to demonstrate that microgravity crystallization was now a production capability. And the rest is history. Learn more at varda.com/biopharma

We're #hiring a new Laboratory Operations Technician in El Segundo, California. Apply today or share this post with your network.

The Varda Space Industries team will be in San Diego at the BIO International Convention! Send a message to Adrian Radocea, Michael Reilly, Sarah Herschede, Ph.D., or William Wittbold to learn more about how we're bringing products from space to benefit patients on Earth. #bio2026 #biointernationalconvention #biotech #pharmaceuticals #drugdevelopment

We trust that when we pick up a prescription, it will work as intended. We trust that it will dissolve the way it should, deliver the correct dose, remain stable over time, and perform consistently from one batch to the next. Those expectations feel obvious because they have become part of modern life. But behind every tablet, capsule, or injection are countless decisions about formulation and manufacturing. The conditions under which a medicine is made can influence how it behaves, how consistently it performs, and ultimately how patients experience it. In pharmaceuticals, innovation isn't always about discovering an entirely new molecule. Sometimes it's about understanding how to make an existing one better. Microgravity offers a novel path. The smallest changes can have consequences that reach far beyond the laboratory.

We're #hiring a new Senior Systems, Integration, and Test Engineer in El Segundo, California. Apply today or share this post with your network.

There is nothing quite like the energy in the room during a Varda reentry mission - equal parts caffeine, grit and technical excellence. We're pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in low Earth orbit, and we’re looking for the next generation of pioneers to help us write the next chapter. Come build the future of in-space manufacturing and commercial reentry with us. https://lnkd.in/gjJDhA5p

We're #hiring a new Automation and Controls Software Engineer in El Segundo, California. Apply today or share this post with your network.

W6 is home! Safe and sound and already posing for operator photos. 6 down.