NewSpace earns more real estate in Kennedy

Artist representation of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Image Credit: James Vaughan / SpaceFlight Insider

Florida Space, the Florida state aerospace economic development agency, will meet in Tampa next week to provide some $ 18 million from the state to help Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) and Blue Origin, LLC, to develop new facilities at the Kennedy Space Center.

On the agenda of the meeting is an article titled "Project Palmer / SpaceX FDOT", proposes $ 14.5 million for SpaceX launch and landing control center tower, located in SpaceX operations area not yet budgeted, and a hangar for the new Falcon Heavy rocket.

As indicated on Florida today$ 3.4 million would go to the rocket manufacturing site that Blue Origin is developing at Exploration Park, located near the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex.

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) reimburse SpaceX and Blue Origin for these specified amounts. Overall, the ministry has earmarked $ 31 million for Kennedy Space Center infrastructure improvements and more than $ 100 million for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

Photo credit: Mark Usciak / SpaceFlight Insider

The bulk of this money will go not to build the facilities themselves, but to support infrastructure such as roads and utilities that would benefit tenants or visitors to the sites.

SpaceX is committed to investing $ 15 million of its own money, and Blue Origin $ 30 million, to these efforts, and much more to the overall projects.

Blue Origin has committed $ 200 million for its now-almost complete New Glenn Rocket Plant and is launching Complexes 36 and 11 at Cape Canaveral Air Station, where the company will launch its New Glenn Orbital Rocket. The first launch is planned for 2020.

The expansion of SpaceX is expected to add 90 jobs, paying $ 75,000 a year. Blue Origin plans will add 330 jobs at $ 89,000. Space Florida's work is expected to create 50 jobs at a salary of $ 75,000. In all, this work will create at least 140 jobs at the Kennedy Space Center.

SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk in 2002 and has a contract with Boeing as part of NASA's Commercial Crew program. The Falcon 9 rocket is the first rocket in history to be launched, deploying its payload into orbit, and then landing vertically on an autonomous spacecraft or on a spacecraft. near its launch site at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Landing Zone 1.

These recent announcements come at a time when SpaceX is seeing growing support from customers needing launch services. The company in Hawthorne, California, recently received some $ 130 million to launch the AFSPC-52 of the United States Air Force mission atop a Falcon Heavy rocket. If all goes according to plan, this mission should be launched between the middle and the end of 2020.

Due to the confidential nature of the mission, the payload has not been announced. However, the following statement was made via a version:

"The competitive award of this launch service contract EELV directly supports the mission of Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) to provide resilient and affordable space capabilities to our nation while maintaining guaranteed access to it." space, "said LGen John Thompson. Executive Officer for Commander Space and SMC.

The company plans to launch more than 20 missions this year. Eventually, it could launch up to 60 rockets a year – more than twice the number of flights in the upbeat schedule initially planned for the NASA space shuttle.

Blue Origin was founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos. Originally, the company focused on suborbital flights, but the New Glenn rocket is an orbital launcher designed to transport astronauts into its spacecraft.

Space Florida is also working with other companies to turn the Land Shuttle Landing facility into a commercial runway called the Space Florida Launch and Landing Facility.

Tagged: Blue Origin Space Florida SpaceX The Range

Collin Skocik

Collin R. Skocik has been captivated by space flights since the first flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia in April 1981. He frequently attends events organized by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation and has met many astronauts in his experiments. at the Kennedy Space Center. He is a prolific writer of science fiction as well as scientific and spatial articles.

In addition to the series Journey to the Unknown, he has also written The Future Lives! Short story collection, the science fiction novel Dreams of the Stars, and the disaster novel The Sunburst Fire. His first print sale was Asteroid Eternia in Encounters magazine. When it does not write, it provides subtitling for the hearing impaired. He lives in Atlantic Beach, Florida.