March 28, 2024
Pandemic's tourism impact predictable, but blow to Florida's aerospace industry unexpected
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Test Flight

Pandemic's tourism impact predictable, but blow to Florida's aerospace industry unexpected

The severity of the COVID-19 pandemic’s fallout on Florida’s tourism economy and workforce was predictable, but the state’s burgeoning aerospace industry has taken a hit few saw coming.

London-based OneWeb, a joint investor with European aerospace giant Airbus in a Space Coast satellite-manufacturing plant, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, claiming the stock market crash fostered by the COVID-19 crisis has dried up venture capital, making it impossible to proceed with plans.

"It is with a very heavy heart that we have been forced to reduce our workforce and enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy,” OneWeb CEO Adrian Steckel said Friday, confirming COVID-19 as the cause. "The company's remaining employees are focused on responsibly managing our nascent constellation and working with the court and investors."

OneWeb Satellites said it and AirBus will continue to manufacture satellites on Merritt Island’s Exploration Park, but is scaling back, despite receiving billions in investment from SoftBank, the Japanese conglomerate, and others.

“OneWeb Satellites is maintaining limited operations in Florida,” OneWeb Satellites said on its website.

OneWeb Satellites in July completed its 105,500-square-foot, $300 million plant in Exploration Park, just outside NASA's Cape Canaveral Spaceport gates and across the street from Blue Origin's rocket factory.

The plant created 250 high-paying jobs and 3,000 “indirect jobs through the supply chain,” according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO), which assembled a $17.5 million incentives package for the plant in 2017.

OneWeb Satellites said its plant would deliver two satellites a day at “$1 million and under” by 2022. The satellites are “internet-delivery spacecraft” the size of mini-fridges that serve as low-orbit broadband relay stations.

OneWeb Satellites aimed to expand its constellation of 650 satellites to 1,980 by 2022.

OneWeb said the plant produced and launched 74 satellites, established half of its proposed 44 ground stations and demonstrated “the technical feasibility of its small-satellite internet constellation.”

One Web said it was “engaged in advanced negotiations regarding investment that would fully fund the company through its deployment and commercial launch” but, over the past month, it “did not progress because of the financial impact and market turbulence related to the spread of COVID-19.”

One Web and OneWeb Satellites did not specify how much of its Exploration Park’s workforce will be affected, although both say there have been layoffs and furloughs.

In its 21-page bankruptcy filing, OneWeb said it owes $238 million to European launch provider Arianespace, $8 million to California-based semiconductor and telecommunications company Qualcomm, and about $550,000 to Melbourne-based USSI Global.

Exploration Park is the spearhead of Florida’s drive to be a leader in the burgeoning trillion-dollar aerospace industry. It is where Firefly Aerospace is building a $52 million launch-vehicle factory this year to employ 239 people with an average salary of $70,000, and where Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos, is building its New Glenn orbital launch vehicle.

Florida has a long history in the commercial aerospace industry after serving as the proving grounds for the nation’s missile programs, beginning with America’s first launch of Bumper 8 in 1950 and the first manned missions into space in 1961.

Five of the nation’s 14 commercial space launchpads are in Florida and managed by Space Florida, a public-private state agency created by the Legislature in 2006.

Space Florida operates five “spaceport” special districts, including the Cape Canaveral Spaceport, which has drawn more $1 billion in nonfederal investment to modernize its infrastructure in the last 15 years.

Original story at the Center Square.

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