Firm completes spacecraft factory in Mojave

[n2doc]

By W.J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times
September 20, 2011
Bringing commercial spaceflight a step closer to reality, a privately funded aerospace firm has built a production plant where it will assemble the world's first fleet of passenger-ready spaceships.

The 68,000-square-foot facility next to a runway at the Mojave Air and Space Port about 100 miles north of Los Angeles is one of the first aircraft assembly plants to be built in the region in decades. It'll be home to Spaceship Co. — a joint venture of Mojave-based Scaled Composites and British billionaire Richard Branson's space tourism company, Virgin Galactic.

"This is a big day for Galactic," said George Whitesides, chief executive of Virgin Galactic. "We're moving closer and closer to bringing paying passengers into space."

The joint venture expects to begin building spacecraft at the end of the month. It showcased its new $8-million hangar Monday to about 250 public officials and reporters, revealing a gleaming white factory floor where as many as 200 people are expected to assemble spacecraft.

The company has begun posting job openings on its website for engineers and technicians.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-fi-spaceship-factory-20110920,0,7626381.story