Last week, Houston Airports, which owns all three Houston, Texas airports and is one of North America’s largest public airport systems, announced that the Houston Spaceport, the nation’s 10th commercially licensed Spaceport, will site the world’s first commercial space station builder, Axiom Space.
Axiom, a privately held company that plans to begin hosting private missions to the International Space Station in 2021, will build a 14-acre headquarters campus to train private astronauts and begin production of its Axiom Station, billed as the world’s first free-flying, internationally available private space station to serve as humanity’s central hub for research, manufacturing and commerce in low Earth orbit.
The new Axiom Space Headquarters campus will be located in phase one of the 400 acre Houston Spaceport at Ellington Airport, EFD. The first phase, spanning 153 acres, was completed in December and includes vital infrastructure like streets, utilities, and robust communications systems.
“We had a vision of Houston Spaceport bringing together a cluster of aviation and aerospace enterprises that would support the future of commercial spaceflight,” Houston Airports Aviation Director Mario Diaz said upon the deal’s announcement last week. “Today, we have an urban center for collaboration and ideation, a place where the brightest minds in the world can work closely together to lead us into the next frontier of space exploration.”
Axiom Space’s Houston Spaceport headquarters campus will include the construction of approximately 322,000 square feet of facility space to accommodate Axiom Station modules and terminal building space to house private astronauts, operations, engineering and other requirements, conveniently located to the Ellington airfield.
“Houston Spaceport represents an ideal headquarters location with its infrastructure and benefits as well as its co-location at Ellington Airport,” Axiom Space CEO Mike Suffredini said. “The opportunity to build high-bay hangars where we can assemble the Axiom Station while simultaneously training our private astronauts for missions gives us the flexibility we need as we build the future of commercial space.”
The development is estimated to bring more than a thousand jobs to Houston, which already has one of the highest concentrations of engineering talent in the nation. Johnson Space Center, which employs more than 11,000 people and utilizes airfields at Ellington Airport, is just minutes from the Houston Spaceport.
“Axiom Space’s announcement is a game-changer for Houston as we extend our position as a commercial aerospace leader,” President and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership, the economic development organization serving the Greater Houston area, Bob Harvey said. “Houston is a city built on innovation with a technology-focused workforce, and this move adds to the region’s momentum as one of the country’s leading next-generation tech hubs.”
One of Houston Spaceport’s tenants includes Intuitive Machines, a private company that secured a NASA contract to build the NOVA-C Spacecraft, a nearly 13-foot lunar lander that will deliver cargo to the moon in 2021. San Jacinto College has also invested in building its Edge Center, the official education partner for Houston Spaceport that offers aerospace training and career pathways for students.
“The same great environment that produced so many technological advancements in Houston’s past is, once again, creating its next successful venture into space – Axiom Station – the world’s first commercial space station,” President of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership Bob Mitchell said. “The synergies now being realized at the Houston Spaceport – between Houston’s dynamic industry partners, its world class training and academic providers, and its far-sighted community investors – are not only benefitting Axiom but will only get stronger over time. We are all in this together and the best is yet to come!”
Deal news from space
In other space venture news, Denver’s Voyager Space Holdings, a privately held company that acquires and operates other space exploration companies (including Alaska-based space components maker The Launch Company, which it bought in November), has announced that it is buying a majority stake in another space holding company, XO Markets, and its largest subsidiary, Houston’s Nanoracks.
Nanoracks is a provider of commercial space services for satellite deployment and research, serving clients in more than 30 countries. As part of the transaction, Voyager will infuse “significant growth capital” to support Nanoracks, as it broadens its service offering in the International Space Station, as well as its own Nanoracks Space Outpost Program for private space platforms.
“Over the past decade my team and I have worked to grow Nanoracks from a garage-based start up into the first commercial space company with customers,” said Jeffrey Manber, CEO of Nanoracks. “We continue to push the envelope of what’s possible in commercial space. This critical leap forward takes place as we have worked closely with NASA, the European Space Agency and industry partners to equip the International Space Station with our Bishop Airlock. With Voyager, we’re confident in our expanded team’s ability to continue to deliver game-changing technology industry-wide.”
To date, Nanoracks has launched over 1,000 projects to the International Space Station, including microgravity research, small satellites and missions to both low-Earth orbit and deep space. Nanoracks also recently launched the first commercial airlock – The Bishop – on the SpaceX CRS-21 mission on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. The Bishop Airlock is the first-ever commercial, permanent addition to the International Space Station, bringing five times more customer volume than currently available through the existing, government-operated airlock. The company is also actively working toward its long-term Outpost Program, which will enable Nanoracks to own, operate and leverage commercial space stations, repurposing in-space hardware to make discoveries that will change life on Earth.
“Voyager is always on the lookout for organizations doing things differently. Our model is best suited for companies like Nanoracks, who are at the forefront of innovation and growing rapidly,” said Matthew Kuta, president and COO of Voyager Space Holdings. “With Voyager’s support, Nanoracks can continue to do what it does best: develop in-space services and technology that is poised to transform life on Earth and in space.”
