A Google Science Fair Galactic Hangout held earlier today from the production floor of the Spaceship Company in Mojave. Calif. Participants included space design engineer Adam Wells, spaceship builder Joe Brennan, astronaut relations specialist Lauren De Niro Pipher, and rocket engineer Marissa Good.
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Ever wanted to build a spaceship or work for a spaceline? Here’s your chance. Representatives will be taking resumes for both Virgin Galactic and the Spaceship Company during the monthly Plane Crazy Saturday event at the Mojave Air and Space Port on April 20. The free open house runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Spaceship Company is beginning to ramp up production of WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo vehicles in […]
Sir Richard Branson and daughter, Holly, look through the window of a SpaceShipTwo shell. (Photo credit: Mark Greenberg/Virgin Galactic)
MOJAVE, CA – Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, today dropped into his Mojave, Calif.-based Virgin Galactic space company as part of a visit to the Los Angeles area. During his visit, Sir Richard, accompanied by his daughter, Holly, toured the extensive facilities and met informally with the Mojave-based workforce now numbering more than 175 Virgin Galactic employees. Sir Richard announced to staff that Virgin Galactic’s Mojave-based sister organization, The Spaceship Company, which will manufacture and assemble a fleet of commercial space vehicles, is to be renamed and brought under the Virgin Galactic brand.
WhiteKnightTwo beside the Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space in New Mexico. (Credit: David Wilson, Spaceport America)
New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez will make a renewed push to have an informed consent law extended to spacecraft manufacturers and supplier in order to make Spaceport America more competitive. An effort earlier this year failed due to the oppositi0n of trail lawyers.
The renewed push, set for next year’s legislative session, comes as news broke that the Mojave Air and Space Port in California is hiring former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is being hired as a consultant to get similar legislation pushed in the Golden State. The Albuquerque Journal reports:
Scott Darnell, a spokesman for Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, said, “Richardson is certainly free to consult or help with the spaceport activities of another state, but in New Mexico, this just highlights how important it is for us to ensure that we continue to lead in this industry by passing legislation in the upcoming session that prevents lawsuit abuse.”
MOJAVE, Calif. (VG/TSC PR) ― Officials with Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company today announced both companies are seeking to fill a combined 18 key positions with qualified engineers, systems designers and more.
Virgin Galactic is currently accepting applications for the following six positions: operations engineer, seat mechanism designer, design engineer, IT manager, regulatory compliance manager and embedded systems software developer. In addition, the company’s space systems development division seeks a mechanical designer, mechanical lead, guidance/navigation/control (GNC) lead and chief engineer.
From left to right – David Fitzgerald, FAITH Construction Manager (TSC); Jason Langan, Facilities Supervisor (TSC); Enrico Palermo, Vice President Operations (TSC); Mike Anthony, Senior Account Manager (Southern California Edison); and Andrew Lee, Technical Specialist (Southern California Edison). (Credit: The Spaceship Company)
MOJAVE, Calif. (TSC PR) ― The Spaceship Company (TSC), the joint venture of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites, today received a $290,206 incentive check for completing the Savings By Design energy efficiency program with the design of its Final Assembly, Integration and Test Hangar, or FAITH, at the Mojave Air and Space Port.
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
There are several hundred open positions in Mojave as companies such as the Spaceship Company, XCOR and Scaled Composites begin to ramp up operations.
“It’s ironic that we’re having a recruitment problem in Mojave,” said Stu Witt, CEO and general manager of the Mojave Air and Space Port. He added that this is a good problem to have.
The Spaceship Company, which is building WhiteKnightTwos and SpaceShipTwos for Virgin Galactic, has engineering and production positions open. The company is holding a jobs fair in Wichita, Kansas, on March 14 to recruit prospective employees there.
Scaled Composites has 11 positions featured on its website, including aerodynamicist, composite fabricator, manufacturing engineer, and purchasing manager.
XCOR is staffed up on the engineering side but is looking to build out its business operations. The company is seeking a director of retail sales and channel operations to oversee sales to individual passengers and organizations that want to fly experiments on the suborbital Lynx vehicle.
A look inside the Spaceship Company’s new production facility in Mojave.
TSC PR ― MOJAVE, Calif. ― The Spaceship Company (TSC), the aerospace production joint venture of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites, achieved a significant milestone in making commercial space travel a reality with today’s opening of its Final Assembly, Integration and Test Hangar, or FAITH, at Mojave Air and Space Port. The $8 million, modern, energy-efficient hangar supports the final stages of production for prime customer Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo, and will add new jobs to the commercial space industry at spaceports in Mojave and New Mexico.
SpaceShipTwo. (Photo: Mark Greenberg)
VG PR — SPACEPORT AMERICA, N.M. — Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, LLC, the world’s first commercial spaceline, and sister aerospace production company, The Spaceship Company (TSC), in cooperation with the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, today announced that they will host their first-ever “Industry Day” on Oct. 18., 2011 at Spaceport America near Las Cruces, N.M.