Businesses eye a future in space as new Texas Space Commission launches

The new Texas Space Commission is up and running. The governing body aims to encourage aerospace companies to add to the state's economy. NBC 5 toured one company in Central Texas and spoke with the commission's newly hired executive director.

Space is more crowded than many think. Roughly 10,000 satellites orbit Earth and move throughout the cosmos. What happens if they need repairs? Firefly Aerospace aims to fill that business opportunity.

“It’s really expensive to get satellites to space. It takes a lot of fuel, a lot of equipment, we’re talking millions of dollars to get satellites into space," said Jeff Duncan, Firefly's director of mechanical engineering. "If they run out of gas, run out of life, batteries, they get damaged ... they no longer have value.”

With nearly 700 employees, the Cedar Park, Texas-based aerospace transportation company acts like a road mechanic, repairing damaged space vehicles or towing them to different areas. This all happens 1,200 miles in the sky.

NBC 5 met with Duncan at their "rocket ranch" in Burnet County.

Firefly is a company growing in the space industry. Blue Origin and Elon Musk's Space X have already set up shop in Texas. State lawmakers approved, and Gov. Greg Abbott created a Texas Space Commission to regulate and encourage the industry last year.

The Texas appeal for space companies comes from major universities training a high-tech workforce and open land on the outskirts of major cities. Much of the rocket tests for Firefly need space away from homes so they can thrust their engines without noise complaints.

For Duncan, it means more jobs will be closer to his hometown.

“There is a lot of neat stuff happening in Texas now that wasn’t around. When I got out of college, none of those jobs were available to me. It’s really neat to see all this stuff popping up at home," said Duncan.

Texans aren't just behind the vehicles in orbit but also the ones heading to the moon. Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander just went off for testing with NASA. Later this year, it will make the trip to the moon.

Ray Allensworth, the company's spacecraft program director, is one of the many University of Texas at Austin graduates who now works for the company.

"Your options historically have been pretty limited. A lot of it is California or Florida or Colorado, for example," she said.

"It gives people another option for a place for people to live and work on something they’re passionate about. But also be in the community and the environment that they grew up in and went to school in," said Allensworth.

Firefly's moon lander has 10 scientific instruments to study details of the dusty lunar surface. It aims to discover what exactly happens on the moon's "dark side."

"This mission is particularly important because the U.S. is re-learning how to go to the moon, and if you look at a lot of the initiatives in space right now, it’s to eventually become multi-planetary so that you can have humans or habitation or be productive in space," said Allensworth.

Texas has a long history connected to the federal space program. The creation of the Texas Space Commission signals the industry will be here for years to come.

"You don’t think about it, but you’re using a satellite pretty much every minute of the day. If you have an Apple watch. If you have a cell phone, you’re pretty much interacting with a satellite in some way," Allensworth said.

HOW WILL THE SPACE COMMISSION WORK?

NBC 5 spoke with Norman Garza Jr, the new executive director of the Texas Space Commission.

In December, the Texas Space Commission Board of Directors plans to develop a strategic plan to guide them in the years ahead. The commission has nine members: three appointed by the governor, three appointed by the lieutenant governor, and three appointed by the state speaker.

"Hopefully, the strategic plan will also become sort of a playbook," said Garza.

The commission has two goals according to Garza, to get the companies already in Texas to stay in the state and to bring new companies in. They have $150 million in incentives to encourage companies to come.

Much of the space industry in Texas revolves around the Johnson Space Center. In the past, Garza worked on a special institute in the Texas A&M System next door to the facility to focus on the space industry. He worked on a similar program to incentivize the semiconductor industry in Texas. In next few months ahead, his governing board will decide what grants are available from the $150 million fund and the guidelines to get them.

He said there have been "no conversations" about specific Texas laws regulating space. He told NBC 5 that the rules on who governs space are in flux because of the many countries and companies involved.

Currently, the commission plans to act like an economic development organization.

"To make sure that the landscape is attractive enough for those companies that aren't yet in Texas to consider coming to Texas, plant their flag, and be part of the commercial space exploration network," he said.

Part of this comes from a historic $30 billion state budget surplus brought in from the tax revenue from a booming economy. Garza said Texas can out-compete its competition in the space industry, states like Florida, Colorado, Alabama, and California, because it can put "hard cash on the table."