California space factory to step up production to hundreds of satellites each year

Millennium Space Systems has officially broken ground on Phase-3 of its manufacturing & production plan, building out an additional 35,000 square feet at its existing spacecraft factory in El Segundo, Calif., located two miles south of LAX and adjacent to the Los Angeles Air Force Base and the Aerospace Corporation. The expansion, anticipated to be completed by mid-summer of this year, also encompasses additional space to broaden the company's existing onsite mission operations, rapid prototyping, internal research and development laboratories and high-tech workspace.

Stan Dubyn, Millennium's Chairman & CEO, commented, "with this Phase-3 facility expansion, we're putting into place the additional manufacturing & production processes and infrastructure to build hundreds of satellites each year, sparked by the work started with us by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, on the SeeMe Program, where the demand was to provide a sustaining capability to build 24 satellites on 90-day call-ups. We just hit our second year at the new spacecraft factory - this next big step adds to our capacity to continue designing, manufacturing, testing, delivering, and operating a wide range of satellites and components from our ALTAIR and AQUILA platform lines."

Sir Richard Branson pledges $100,000 to space telescope project

Planetary Resources announced Sunday that Sir Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group, has joined the company's core group of investors.

Based in Seattle, Wash., Planetary Resources is planning a series of low-cost robotic space missions with the ultimate goal of one day mining precious minerals from near Earth asteroids.

“I’m excited to be part of the Planetary Resources’ team working on extracting precious minerals from near Earth asteroids," Branson said. “The only way to truly explore our Solar System is to develop the technology and means to sustain our presence in space without depleting resources of Earth.”

Branson generously made a campaign pledge of $100,000 toward the ARKYD space telescope project managed by Planetary Resources. ARKYD will be the world's first crowdfunded space telescope for the public, which has generated nearly 17,000 supporters and over $1.3 million in pledges.

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