INTUITIVE MACHINES SEES HI-TECH JOBS, ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES AT SPACEPORT

June 29, 2015

Hi-Tech jobs and economic opportunities are what the Houston Spaceport means to industry.

Working in partnership with the Houston Airport System (HAS), Intuitive Machines President and CEO Steve Altemus is aiming at being an anchor tenet in the Houston Spaceport.

Intuitive Machines, LLC is a new business in the Houston area developing technology solutions at the limitless intersection of aerospace, energy, and medicine.

Applying the best of engineering from human spaceflight, Intuitive Machines leverages the rigor, methodologies and technologies from spaceflight and applies them as technology solutions across the three sectors — resources that represent the major economic pillars of the City of Houston. 

Coincident with the announcement that HAS has been granted a Launch Site License from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), establishing Ellington Airport (EFD) as the 10th commercial spaceport in the United States, Intuitive Machines is developing a Terrestrial Return Vehicle (TRV) to bring high value scientific and engineering samples back from the International Space Station on a precision guided return to Earth.

"The vehicle we are developing is capable of returning from space and landing at a spaceport within 15 meters accuracy," Altemus said.

While the initial flight of TRV is slated to land at Vandenberg Air Force Base in October 2016, subsequent flights now have the potential to return to the new spaceport facility at Ellington Field. 

Setting up a spaceport in Houston means economic development for the region.

"I see the spaceport as a campus to attract high tech businesses for the purpose of advancing technology and developing an emerging space culture right here in the City of Houston," Altemus said.

“It makes incredible sense to leverage the proximity to NASA Johnson Space Center to build a Spaceport and Research park at Ellington.”

And with its focus on technology solutions for emerging space companies, Intuitive Machines comes as an industry partner to bring a necessary dose of entrepreneurship along with the technical chops to solve some of the most intractable problems in spaceflight.