Ever wanted to know what it’s like to renter the Earth’s atmosphere, to see it happening right in front of your nose? Well if you do then the following video is worth the 5m45s of your time. There’s one sequence from around the 3m mark that is straight out the Star Gate sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey

The video is an edited, condensed version of a longer one which can be found at this link, and which also explains what Varda is all about, and the New Zealand connection:

W-1 was part of a Rocket Lab Photon spacecraft launched in June 2023 on SpaceX’s Transporter-8 rideshare mission (NASA’s CAPSTONE mission also launched on this flight.). Varda used the spacecraft to test their in-space manufacturing technologies.

Inside the capsule, the company was able to produce crystals of a drug called ritonavir, an antiviral drug grown in the microgravity LEO environment that can be used to treat HIV and hepatitis C. The company’s goal is to develop the infrastructure to make LEO more accessible to commercial industries.