Ramona Adams
Lockheed Martin has kicked off a $350 million project to build a satellite production facility at the company’s Waterton Canyon campus in Colorado.
The Gateway Center is scheduled for completion in 2020 and will accommodate Lockheed’s growing workforce and future projects in Colorado, the company said Wednesday.
Rick Ambrose, executive vice president of Lockheed’s space systems business, said the company aims to accelerate satellite manufacturing processes and maximize economies of scale through the new facility.
“We’re investing in infrastructure and technology to help strengthen the nation’s leadership in military and commercial space and scientific exploration,” added Ambrose, an inductee in Executive Mosaic‘s Wash100 for 2017.
The Gateway Center will feature a thermal vacuum chamber to simulate the space conditions; an anechoic chamber for sensor and communications system tests; and a test operations and analysis center.
The facility is designed to comply with security standards necessary for the company to support national security missions.
Lockheed picked Hensel Phelps to serve as the project’s general contractor; Matrix PDM Engineering and Dynavac to design and build the thermal vacuum chamber; and ETS-Lindgren to construct the anechoic chamber.
The 3.5-million-square-foot Waterton Canyon campus houses more than 4,000 Lockheed employees and supports the production of the U.S. Air Force‘s GPS III satellites, NASA‘s InSight Mars lander and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration‘s GOES-R Series weather satellites.
