Christine Thropp
Axiom Space will construct a 14-acre headquarters campus at Houston Spaceport where the company plans to build a habitable space station module for NASA and train private astronauts for missions.
The aerospace company said Tuesday the new campus will include a facility for assembling Axiom Station modules that would attach to the International Space Station and serve as laboratory and residential infrastructure in low Earth orbit to support microgravity experiments, critical space-environment materials testing and other research initiatives.
Axiom Space received a potential $140M indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract from NASA in March to build at least one commercial ISS module.
"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," said Mike Suffredini, president and CEO of Axiom Space.
Located in phase one of Houston Spaceport at Ellington Airport, the Axiom Space headquarters will have access to the Ellington airfield will accommodate terminal building space for operations, engineering, astronaut housing and other requirements.
Over a thousand employment opportunities related the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics are expected to result from the campus development.
Aside from Axion Space, Houston Spaceport also houses San Jacinto College's Edge Center, which provides aerospace training programs in support of the industry, and Intuitive Machines, a NASA contractor working on a lunar lander for cargo delivery to the moon in 2021.
