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Three new facilities are coming to the Houston Spaceport. See photos of their progress..
Three new facilities are under construction at the Houston Spaceport, a promising step toward the city’s 2015 commitment to transform Ellington Airport into a hub for space activity.
Axiom Space, the local company that recently sent private astronauts to the International Space Station, held a ground-breaking ceremony Wednesday for Phase I of its 22-acre campus. This campus will be used to train future astronauts and develop a commercial space station.
In January, Houston-based Intuitive Machines broke ground on its 12.5-acre, 110,000-square-foot location. This is where it will build lunar landers, operate its mission control and make other space products, such as guidance, navigation and control technology.
And in June of 2021, Charlotte, N.C.-based Collins Aerospace broke ground on an 8-acre, 120,000-square-foot campus to develop and produce systems for NASA’s human spaceflight programs.
“It’s so fascinating to see the progress that Houston and the Houston Spaceport have made,” said Arturo Machuca, the spaceport’s director.
June marks seven years since the Houston Spaceport became the nation’s 10th FAA-licensed commercial spaceport. Its location in the middle of a major city means it will not be home to vertical rocket launches, but early renderings showcased spaceplanes that take off or land horizontally.
That technology is still maturing, including a local company developing a spaceplane to fly passengers from Los Angeles to Tokyo in one hour, and Houston officials didn’t want the spaceport to sit empty as the technology advanced. So they focused on attracting a cluster of aerospace companies that can invent, develop and manufacture space technologies.
The spaceport now has three anchor tenants and is in talks with three additional companies that might become tenants, Machuca said.
“We realized that a spaceport was not about flights,” said Mario Diaz, director of the Houston Airport System. “It was not about rockets taking off or jets taking off. It was about what kind of economic development, what kind of manufacturing, what kind of companies could you bring to the forefront.”
The spaceport experienced an early blow to this idea in 2017, when it lost a bid to attract a Blue Origin rocket engine manufacturing facility that promised a $200 million investment and 342 well-paying jobs.
So it spent roughly $20 million to build streets, utilities and other infrastructure that would make the spaceport more attractive.
And more recently, the Houston Airport System has appropriated up to $105.6 million to finance construction for Axiom Space, Intuitive Machines and Collins Aerospace. The companies will pay this money back to the Houston Airport System, plus interest. The Houston Airport System will own the buildings, and the companies will lease them.
Collins Aerospace, a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies Corp., plans to move into its new facility in the third quarter of this year. The company will relocate some 120 Houston employees currently working from 18050 Saturn Lane.
Its new building will also include 10,000 square feet for high-tech aerospace startups.
Intuitive Machines plans to open an advanced propulsion test facility in June. It’s targeting May 2023 for opening the main facility.
The lunar lander company currently has offices at 3700 Bay Area Blvd., and it leases a smaller building at the Houston Spaceport (it was the first spaceport tenant). Intuitive Machines plans to grow from 150 employees to 200 by the end of this year, and most of those employees will be based at its new spaceport facility.
Axiom Space plans to complete the first phase of its construction (106,000 square feet and 11 acres) by April 2023. This includes a high bay where the company can receive the first module of its space station. The exterior of this module is being made in Italy, but Axiom will install and test its various electronics and life-support systems in Houston.
The first segment of its space station is slated to launch in late 2024.
Axiom is currently headquartered at 1290 Hercules Ave. and has about 450 employees. It expects to have 800 people by the end of this year and 1,300 people by the end of next year.
To help develop local talent to fill these companies, the Houston Airport System has contracted with FS Group Architects to plan a campus where several colleges and universities could collaborate. Machuca said the airport system does not yet have funding beyond the planning and design phase, but the goal is to build upon the work of San Jacinto College EDGE Center that currently offers aerospace training at the spaceport.
“Our workforce must be ready to seize on the opportunities that will spring from this extraordinary and crucial undertaking,” said Diaz, director of the Houston Airport System.
andrea.leinfelder@chron.com
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