California-based defense and security research nonprofit Aerospace Corp. will announce plans Wednesday for a $ 100 million research and development facility at the Colorado Springs airport that will employ 200 people.
Aerospace employs 240 engineers, scientists, analysts, and cybersecurity specialists in a 78,000-square-foot building opened in 2007 at the airport’s Peak Innovation Park that has “exceeded capacity,” according to documents released in February by Stantec Architecture to the city of Colorado Springs. to the company. The second 90,000-square-foot building, adjacent to existing facilities, is necessary to “meet the increasing requirements of the United States Space Command, the United States Space Force and a variety of other customers,” the company said in a press release.
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“This new high-tech facility builds on our commitment to support our numerous partners in the Colorado Springs region to advance the security of our nation in space,” said Steve Isakowitz, Aerospace President and CEO, in the statement. “The space company is changing faster than ever, and our greatest capabilities will be critical in helping our government partners address critical issues and shape future concepts for space warfare.”
Aerospace said it plans to start the building, which will be able to accommodate an additional 200 technical employees the company plans to add, in September and open the facility in the spring of 2022. About 70% of the space in the new building will be for classified work for acquisition. , testing and evaluation, tactics, development of techniques and procedures, as well as “delving into the exploration of concepts,” the company said.
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“The type of work Aerospace is doing in Colorado Springs is growing and we anticipate that growth will continue,” said Jean Michael, general manager of the company’s war fighting and business division in Colorado Springs. The company allows many of its staff to work from any of its companies. Said that, to support clients with projects elsewhere, Aerospace has 19 openings on its website (aerospace.org/careers) for various types of engineers, analysts and specialists.
Among the areas driving Aerospace’s growth is the “Thor Project,” an initiative the company created last year to “provide recommendations to overcome the threat in space,” according to a company press release. The Thor Project is part of a broader effort to examine the trends that will shape the development of the Space Force, created last year as the sixth military branch with much of its operations in Colorado Springs.
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Employees at the Colorado Springs location work for Aerospace Corp.’s Defense Systems Group, strategic space operations, and its Engineering Technology Group, a national hub for such work. Aerospace employs some 4,000 people nationwide at its headquarters and offices in El Segundo, California, in Colorado Springs, Albuquerque, NM, and Washington, DC, to work on “complex problems with agility, innovation, and objective technical leadership throughout the space company “. said the statement.
The aerospace complex will be the third major project under construction in the 960-acre business park. Amazon started construction earlier this year on a nearly 4 million square foot sorting and distribution center that will employ at least 1,000 people and the US Forest Service is building a regional air tanker center to combat forest fires. The park also houses Northrop Grumman operations in Colorado Springs, an Amazon delivery station, and a rapid-deployment military terminal.
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