Ramona Adams
Lockheed Martin‘s space systems business hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for a satellite manufacturing facility that will be built at the company’s Colorado campus, Denver Business Journal reported Wednesday.
The company announced in early August it made a $350 million investment to build the 266,000-square-foot Gateway Center, which is scheduled to open in 2020.
Rick Ambrose, executive vice president of Lockheed’s space systems division, said the center would help the company anticipate future satellite production requirements.
Ambrose, an inductee into Executive Mosaic‘s Wash100 for 2017, added that Lockheed’s space systems unit has invested a total of $250 million in construction and facilities as well as $750 million in space technology development over the past five years.
Gateway Center is designed to feature a clean room that can accommodate the simultaneous production of five large-scale satellites as well as two testing chambers that will eliminate the need to move satellites between buildings during development, the report noted.
Lockheed expects to employ 1,500 contractor personnel during the three-year construction project.
