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Varda Space Industries

@vardaspaceindustries

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A microgravity-enabled life sciences company that processes materials in orbit and returns them to Earth.

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We're so excited to bring some of the space industry's top female leaders to this year's Space Gala, and Ami is exactly that!

#AmiBhavsar leads the Thermal Engineering team at Varda Space Industries, which is responsible for in-house heat shield manufacturing and thermal management of their reentry capsule, satellite bus, and pharmaceutical payloads. Prior to Varda, Bhavsar worked on structural, dynamics, and thermal analysis of turbomachinery of various aircraft for Honeywell Aerospace. Her background is mechanical engineering with a concentration in heat and mass transport.

Come meet Ami and the rest of the Varda team at this year's Space Gala! Tickets are available via the link in our bio!

#SpaceGala2026 #STEAMEducation by @vardaspaceindustries

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11 days ago

This is the first time Varda has launched two spacecraft on the same rocket.

We’ve operated two vehicles in orbit simultaneously, but launching W-8 and W-9 together represents a shift to fleet operations as we increase launch and reentry cadence.

The two vehicles will be managed in tandem from our newly expanded Mission Operations facility in El Segundo. Today’s double feature launch represents a new phase for Varda: more missions, more returns, and a more resilient pipeline for bringing products home. by @vardaspaceindustries

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18 days ago

And a helluva engineer.
If there's one thing Varda does well, it's bringing GT talent to El Segundo.

Our team will be heading to Atlanta for @georgiatech Space Week and the following week's recruiting fair.

GT alum and Varda's Vice President of W-Series Vehicles, Griff Russell, will be speaking on the "Enabling Infrastructure for the Space Economy of Tomorrow" panel, and don't miss the W-2 capsule, which will be on display during the reception at the Historic Academy of Medicine.

Reach out to us to catch up while we're on campus. People standing around a Varda W-Series capsule in a facility. by @vardaspaceindustries

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a month ago

How it started vs How it's going
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We welcomed the team to Varda's third building this week! Our campus is expanding as fast as our reentry cadence is increasing. Congratulations to our Facilities team for making this new space a reality. by @vardaspaceindustries

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a month ago

Crew Behind the Capsule: Tyree 🤝✉️
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Tyree Lewis joined Varda nearly four years ago as a recruiter and was handed a stack of roles to fill on his first day. Now, as our University Relations Manager, Tyree leads university recruiting across the engineering, operations, and pharmaceutical teams, early-career hiring, campus partnerships, and sponsorships for student teams working on everything from rocketry and robotics to FSAE.
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Tyree found Varda while searching for startups in Los Angeles and was hooked immediately by our mission and the team’s excitement. Before we even launched W-1, Tyree saw the joy, passion, and drive at Varda so he took the leap, moved across the country, and has been building our team ever since.
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“I love getting to take on something that isn’t fully fleshed out and make it my own,” he says. “That sense of ownership is part of Varda’s fabric, and mine.”
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Today, he’s looking for curious engineers who want to tackle hard problems and own meaningful work from day one.
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If making pharmaceuticals in orbit sounds like your kind of challenge, check out our open roles. by @vardaspaceindustries

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a month ago

Varda was featured in last week’s @sciencemagazine

The piece, titled “Orbital Alchemy,” offers an in-depth look at Varda’s W-6 capsule reentry and gives readers an overview of how we’re producing novel medicines in space for patients on Earth.

Swipe for excerpts ➡️

“On a Monday night in May, in a nondescript building along El Segundo’s eastern edge, about 50 engineers with Varda Space Industries gathered to witness not a launch, but a homecoming. They ate cold pizza and played Settlers of Catan as they watched a livestream, waiting for word on a spacecraft’s status.”

“Inside a smaller mission control room, eight desks faced a wall of TV screens streaming information from the spacecraft, which was plummeting to Earth half a world away above the Australian outback. The robotic capsule, roughly the size of a washing machine, was preparing for a fiery plunge through the atmosphere before a planned parachute landing in the desert.”

“Nicholas Cialdella, Varda’s chief technology officer, adjusted his Apple Watch, knowing his pulse would quicken. At 10:59 p.m., the show began. Screaming toward Earth at about 31,000 kilometers per hour, the capsule awoke and separated from the satellite that had shepherded it through orbit, an update it passed along via GPS and radio pings. Cheers went up 17 minutes later, when the capsule’s first parachute deployed exactly on time.”

“Back in El Segundo, engineers at the company’s mission control were feeling upbeat. Varda’s capsule had parachuted into the South Australian outback, safe and sound.”

Link in Bio. by @vardaspaceindustries

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a month ago

July 30th was National Intern Day!
This summer, 25% of Varda has been intern. We bet on ours everyday and they continue to show us that was one of our best investments.

Applications for 2027 spring internships open next week.

Summer internships open in September.

Apply at varda.com/careers by @vardaspaceindustries

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3 months ago

What happens during a Varda reentry step by step?
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Step 1: The capsule (with its payload) separates from the satellite bus at the appropriate orbital window. From that moment, physics takes over.
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Step 2: Atmospheric reentry begins. The capsule hits peak heating (1,000s of degrees on the heatshield). The ablative material does its job and burns away… carrying heat with it and protecting the capsule's contents.
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Step 3: Hypersonic deceleration follows. This part is difficult but also very useful for our government customers. The reentry environment above Mach 5 is one of the hardest things to test on Earth. Wind tunnels can try to approximate the environment… but we actually fly through it.
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Step 4: Parachute deploys. The capsule slows. GPS and tracking lock its position. It lands, and the recovery crew retrieves it.
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Whether the payload is pharmaceutical crystals, sensors, or other experiments, it is removed intact and gets returned to the customer.
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Learn more about how we are making reentry as common as launch and watch more of our videos on YouTube. Link in bio. by @vardaspaceindustries

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3 months ago

Varda had a great time at the annual Aerospace Games this year. If points were awarded based on amount of fun had and number of spacecraft flown, we would have taken home a trophy, too.

We're hiring across propulsion, water balloon toss, structures, software, tug-of-war, and more.

Join us. https://www.varda.com/careers by @vardaspaceindustries

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3 months ago

Crew Behind the Capsule: Ami 🔥
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From the payloads developed in our C-PICA-protected capsule to the satellite bus steering them home, thermal engineering is embedded in every step.
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As Varda’s Thermal Engineering Manager, Ami Bhavsar spends her time thinking through how to scale thermal design of our vehicle to meet the demands of defense and pharmaceutical payloads.
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It starts with a nebulous problem: the vehicle must survive every moment of a mission spanning the contrasting environments of cold, dark space to searing hot reentry, to ultimately deliver shelf stable pharmaceuticals.
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She says it’s like standing in a parking lot in New York City and only being allowed to pick one outfit for all 365 days of the year. Consider managing the swing from icy winters to the summer heat with only the options to stand still or jog in place to balance temperature. Thermal engineering is an energy balancing act, toeing power, packaging, and position.
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Ami has helped shape Varda’s vehicles from the inside out. She joined Varda in 2022 as a Thermofluids Analyst, supporting the reentry capsule and first pharmaceutical payload before taking on a big milestone: becoming the Thermal Responsible Engineer for Varda’s satellite bus, which we make here in El Segundo. From early architecture trades and detailed hardware design to flight operations and dispositioning data on console, the thermal RE role for the Varda bus underscores the highly cross-functional nature of thermal engineering.
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Today, Ami leads the thermal team as they scale in-house C-PICA heatshield production, support our external partners to fly novel materials, unlock new pharmaceutical processes, expand thermofluids capabilities, and mature in-house spacecraft capabilities.
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As Varda continues to grow, Ami is helping build the systems – and the team – that will empower the future of orbital manufacturing.
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Varda is hiring across teams. For more information, and the chance to work on complex problems with exceptional individuals, go to https://www.varda.com/careers. by @vardaspaceindustries

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3 months ago

Meet Varda's Intern Class of 2022: Sam, Dylan, Rebecca, Tracy, Bruce, and Harrison all started as interns during Varda's early days and have grown in their careers along with the company. These six lead the build of key components, spanning software to hardware and mission assurance; pictured here with the very capsule they flew. Needless to say, they have helped build Varda into what it is today.
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We are hiring and are looking for people like these six to help build the next era of the space economy. Apply now at https://www.varda.com/careers Six people smiling and posing with large circular equipment indoors. by @vardaspaceindustries

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3 months ago

This is what our team built. Then they launched it. Then it came back.
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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 technicians and engineers to do it.
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Apply online at varda.com/careers by @vardaspaceindustries

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4 months ago