COLORADO SPRINGS — All Points Logistics has signed an agreement with NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to construct satellite processing facilities on center property.
At a ceremony during the 41st Space Symposium April 15, officials with All Points and KSC signed an enhanced use lease agreement for 64 acres of land at KSC about a kilometer and a half south of the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building.
All Points plans to construct two facilities on the property. One is a spaceport logistics center covering 266,000 square feet that will have clean rooms for integrating small- and medium-sized spacecraft as well as storage space, temporary offices and mission operations areas. The other is a spacecraft processing center spanning 275,000 square feet for spacecraft processing, including fueling and encapsulation into launch vehicle payload fairings.
The announcement comes as payload processing facilities emerge as a critical bottleneck for launch activities. Both government and commercial launch customers say demand for payload processing services is outstripping the capacity of existing facilities at spaceports such as KSC and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
“The United States of America has to get access to space in volumes that we’ve never seen before, and one of the big bottlenecks is payload processing,” said former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, an adviser to All Points, at the signing ceremony.
“I know Janet Petro, the head of Kennedy, has been focused on this like a laser for a long period of time, trying to find the right partners that can build the right things to achieve the right end states, get more stuff into space than ever before,” he said.
“It’s one of the main things I kept hearing from all kinds of customers: You need more payload processing facilities,” Petro said at the event.
“This agreement is a major step in positioning All Points as a leading global provider of launch support services through our Space Prep line of business,” said Phil Monkress, chief executive of All Points. “We value NASA’s partnership and look forward to beginning construction this year.”
All Points said it expects the spaceport logistics center to open by the end of 2027 but did not disclose when the separate spacecraft processing center will open.