Space Florida is touting its manufacturing capacity to attract new business as federal budgets tighten and political diversity through “ship-and-shoot” falls out of fashion.
Space Florida President and CEO Frank DiBello said in the past 20 or 30 years, when budgets were fat and new start programs plenty, companies placed manufacturing facilities across the country to curry political favor. DiBello said in today’s space economy challenged by sequestration budget caps and fewer programs of record, companies are looking to consolidate their manufacturing operations as well as their supply chains.
DiBello said the trend away from government-focused space endeavors requires better efficiency.
“As the industry gets increasingly more commercial, you’ll see more companies say ‘I want to be able to set up in a place where I can manufacture and my company will thrive,’” DiBello told Defense Daily during a December interview in Washington. “‘That means I want a logistics chain that is short, I want it surrounding me and I would like to be able to take it right down the road and launch it.’”
DiBello believes Florida is an attractive site for aerospace manufacturing because its workforce has advanced capabilities like 3D printing and the newest composite and nanotechnology manufacturing methods. DiBello said Florida is also an attractive place to do manufacturing thanks to attractive tax structures, reduced regulations and a business development environment that allows the state to finance new infrastructure and make it readily available on attractive terms, which he said is important to allow companies to not only get goods into the Florida, but also ship products out.
Florida, DiBello said, is no longer dependent on one large federal program like the Shuttle or Apollo as it was in the past. Florida is now manufacturing, he said, as Lockheed Martin [LMT] is building its Orion space capsule at Kennedy Space Center’s Operations and Checkout Facility while Boeing [BA] is building its CST-100 Starliner capsule for Commercial Crew at the KSC facility once known as Orbiter Processing Facility-3.
Space Florida will continue focusing on diversifying its space economy moving into 2016, DiBello said. He said the organization is in the process of developing the old Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC as special purpose airport and seaport. DiBello said Space Florida will soon introduce a “number” of new players to the Shuttle Landing Facility as tenants. He also expects some “major” satellite programs expand to Florida.
DiBello said Thursday via a spokeswoman though he couldn’t specify who was interested in the Shuttle Landing Facility, he did say these companies include: existing and next-generation unmanned aerial system (UAS) operators; companies seeking to do aviation flight research, next-generation spaceflight companies that either have, or plans, on a horizontal takeoff, or landing, platform and spaceflight logistics support companies.
Though he wouldn’t comment on satellite companies interested in moving to Florida, DiBello said via a spokeswoman that the companies interested fall into four categories: nano, micro and cubesat designers and manufacturers; laser communications constellations; earth observation satellites and next-generation broadband service constellation systems. Client companies under discussion, he added, are addressing both the military and commercial satellite markets.
DiBello said he expects an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the unused Shiloh property north of KSC to take at least another year to complete due to “additional concerns.” These statements are key steps toward developing government property.
The Shiloh property is unused NASA property deeded to the civil space agency 50 years ago. Space Florida wants to use it for a commercial-only spaceport, but DiBello said the northern portion of the Shiloh property has been turned over to a fish and wildlife organization to operate as a national preserve.
DiBello said four companies have expressed interest to Space Florida for using the Shiloh property, but he declined to specify the companies. DiBello said one company, likely Blue Origin, recently announced its intention to launch rockets from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., “to start.” DiBello said this company, likely Blue Origin, had been originally interested in the Shiloh property.
Beyond developing physical property, DiBello said Space Florida is focusing on improving the environment “behind the fences” and improving commercial operations efficiencies. He credited the Air Force for assisting with this goal in the service’s own effort to streamline its range and launch operations. The Air Force in the last few years moved toward Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking of launches and away from legacy tracking radars that were not only antiquated but required increased manpower (Defense Daily; May 22, 2014).
“I think the future for the industry looks good and I think Florida is well positioned to continue to be a major player,” DiBello said. “My goal is to have Florida be the global leader in space commerce. That’s a bold statement but that’s the goal we’ve set for ourselves.”