Varda’s first pill, W-1, after touchdown in Utah in February 2024
John Kraus/Varda
Someday this week, a 1-metre-wide pill will fall from the sky and land within the South Australian wilderness sporting a shipment of substances.
Since launching on a SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg Area Pressure Base in California on 14 January, a reactor on board the pill has been production an undisclosed, proprietary pharmaceutical compound.
Varda, the US-based corporate that constructed the pill, is aiming to turn that generating medicine in low Earth orbit…






