Space capsule to land in West Desert
Feb 21, 2024, 11:00 AM | Updated: 12:31 pm
The Genesis space capsule, which had orbited the sun for more than three years in an attempt to find clues to the origin of the solar system, falls to Earth at the Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, on Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2004. On February 21, 2024, another space capsule made by Varda Space Industries is slated to land. (AP Photo/NASA TV)
(AP Photo/NASA TV)
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WEST DESERT, Utah — A space capsule is scheduled to land in the desert west of Salt Lake City today.
Delian Asparouhov, the co-founder of Varda Space Industries, said that the company hand-picked the Utah Test and Training Range to land their space capsule. The area has the right conditions for landing.
“[It’s a] perfectly sized military range that could actually, you know, basically fit our re-entry capsule,” said Asparouhov.
Additionally, Asparouhov has ties to Utah. He attended West High School.
Originally, the company wanted to land its space capsule in July. However, they had to wait to get the FAA’s approval.
They got the green light last Wednesday, according to Space News.
Despite the setback, the Varda Space Industries co-founder, said working with the Utah Test and Training Range has been a great experience so far.
“We hope that it’s successful and that we can basically grow this partnership with them and ideally … do more of this over time,” Asparouhov said.
Genesis’ 2004 crash landing in Utah
According to Asparouhov, the company felt confident in its choice to land the space capsule in Utah.
In 2004, a NASA space capsule named Genesis crash-landed in the same desert, as reported by Deseret News.
Despite the rough landing, NASA said that Genesis brought back the first sample collected past the moon. Additionally, Genesis was the first spacecraft to return samples since the 1972 Apollo lunar mission.
Mariah Maynes contributed to this article.
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