Both the Orlando Sentinel and Florida Today are reporting that Space Florida will announce April 19 a deal to bring startup Internet provider OneWeb to Kennedy Space Center's Exploration Park.
According to their web site, OneWeb plans to deploy 650 "microsat" satellites in a constellation around the Earth to “enable affordable access” for global communications.
Florida Today space reporter James Dean writes:
The negotiations anticipated Space Florida building and owning a factory between 100,000 and 120,000 square feet in Exploration Park, with the help of $17.5 million in matching funds from the Florida Department of Transportation. OneWeb would lease the facility — where the average salary would be $86,000 — hoping to move in as soon as next March.
Combined with the 330 jobs Blue Origin expects to base here to build its orbital rocket, OneWeb would make Exploration Park home to nearly 600 high-paying space manufacturing jobs.
That growth builds hope that more business could follow.
Paul Brinkmann of the Orlando Sentinel reports:
The announcement will be made at the Space Life Sciences Lab at Kennedy Space Center, for invited media only. Space Florida is about to award a major new contract to build a new 120,000-square-foot spacecraft-assembly building next door to the lab.
According to a June 2015 OneWeb press release, “OneWeb has attracted investment from Airbus Group, Bharti Enterprises, Hughes Network Systems, (Hughes), a subsidiary of EchoStar Corp., Intelsat, Qualcomm Incorporated, The Coca-Cola Company, Totalplay, a Grupo Salinas Company, owned by Ricardo B. Salinas, and Virgin Group.”
No comments:
Post a Comment