Aerospacelab has opened its first satellite factory in the United States, adding a manufacturing base in Torrance, California, to its operations in Belgium. The opening follows the company’s establishment of a U.S. presence in Palo Alto a year earlier. Aerospacelab announced the new facility on September 5, 2024.
Satellite assembly in California
The Torrance facility covers 35,000 square feet of high-bay and cleanroom environments. Aerospacelab puts its manufacturing capability at an average of two satellites per week on a single shift. The company intends the factory to serve its expanding U.S. customer base, including government and military requirements, alongside the broader aerospace market.
Aerospacelab plans to begin work on a satellite system for Xona Space Systems at the facility in the fourth quarter of 2024. The announced work covers three stages:
- Assembly of the satellite system;
- Integration of its components;
- Testing before subsequent mission operations.
Aerospacelab also has a satellite-subsystem supply agreement with MDA Space. Under the contract announced on July 8, 2024, it is to deliver more than 200 battery charge regulators over three years, with the first deliveries scheduled by 2026. The regulators are high-power subsystems for the MDA Aurora product line.
Components for constellation programmes
The MDA Aurora supply chain supports deliveries for anchor customer Telesat and its Lightspeed low-Earth-orbit constellation. Aerospacelab plans to design, test and manufacture the regulators using its existing flight experience. MDA designs the software-defined product line to accommodate operators’ changing technical and business requirements.
In Belgium, Aerospacelab broke ground on its planned Megafactory in Charleroi on May 16, 2024. The company scheduled the start of manufacturing for 2026. It had announced the project in 2022 and, by the groundbreaking, had completed design plans and permits and assembled its supplier and contractor base.
Belgian manufacturing capacity
The Charleroi factory plan provides for capacity of up to 500 satellites a year, ranging from 150 kilograms to one tonne. Aerospacelab specified 7,000 square metres of production area and 4,000 square metres of cleanroom space. Those figures describe the proposed facility and its intended capability.
Aerospacelab’s existing Belgian satellite factory in Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve opened in 2022, with capacity for up to 24 satellites annually. The company was founded in 2018 and had launched eight satellites by the time of the Torrance announcement. California is its first manufacturing base in the United States, while construction of the larger Charleroi facility is still under way.
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