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OneWeb breaks ground on satellite manufacturing facility

100,000-square-foot facility located at Space Florida's Exploration Park

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. - Crews broke ground Thursday afternoon on satellite provider OneWeb's facility at Kennedy Space Center’s Exploration Park.

The company said the new location is expected to bring 250 jobs to Brevard County.

"We're talking high-paying, high-tech jobs," Gov. Rick Scott said while attending the groundbreaking ceremonies.

OneWeb plans to use local contractors on the project expected to be complete this year.

The project is a joint venture between the satellite provider and Airbus Defence and Space Inc.

The 10,000-square-foot building will be the industry's first satellite factory designed to mass produce spacecraft at low cost, according to OneWeb, producing 15 satellites a week.

"We'll produce over 2,000 satellites," said OneWeb Satellites CEO Brian Holz. "Unprecedented capability -- that's one satellite per line, per shift," Holz said.

"The factory will include state-of-the-art automation, test equipment and data acquisition capabilities to shorten assembly times and to provide means to analyze factory performance and improve processes," a news release added.

OneWeb said it expects to begin launching satellites to provide global internet services built at the facility in 2018.

OneWeb recently announced it contracted with commercial space company Blue Origin to use the New Glenn reusable rocket for a launch.

The agreement with billionaire Jeff Bezos' company is for a 2020 satellite launch.

Blue Origin is currently building a rocket facility of its own in Exploration Park.

"Whether it's Blue Origin, or OneWeb, Northrop Grunman, Lockheed Martin, some of the Boeing things, we are busy. We are booming," Scott told News 6 Thursday.

Quelle: FLORIDA6 NEWS