Florida factory to mass-produce satellites at record pace | Spaceflight Now

OneWeb officials Tuesday unveiled plans for a factory just outside the gates of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida that will churn out up to 15 satellites per week to populate low Earth orbit and beam broadband Internet signals worldwide.

Repurposing aircraft assembly line methods to satellite manufacturing, OneWeb and Airbus Defense and Space are partnering to produce 900 refrigerator-sized spacecraft for launches beginning in 2018.

The first 10 satellites will be assembled at Airbus’s existing satellite factory in Toulouse, France, with series production of 890 more Airbus-designed platforms to follow at a new $85 million facility to be built at Exploration Park near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, officials said Tuesday.

The Florida factory is due to open by the end of 2017.

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