14 DAY TRIAL // Now that the American Space Shuttle Program is officially over, the space agency has just signed off a number of facilities at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) to a company called Space Florida.
This agreement – which NASA officials announced yesterday, October 31 – will ensure that those installations will be put to good use in the coming years, rather than left to decay now that no shuttles remain to use them.
According to KSC representatives, Space Florida is now allowed to occupy, use and modify a number of objectives, including the Orbiter Processing Facility-3 (OPF-3), the Space Shuttle Main Engine Processing Facility and Processing Control Center.
Space Florida is the aerospace economic development agency of the state of Florida, NASA says. The organization will use OPF-3 in collaboration with the Boeing Company, which is currently developing its Crew Space Transportation (CST-100) spacecraft.
The latter is being developed under the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program sponsored by NASA. Boeing is one of the four companies currently being supported by the initiative, alongside Orbital Sciences, SpaceX and Blue Origin.
KSC officials estimate that Boeing's arrival at the iconic spaceport will lead to the creation of about 550 new jobs. The agreement allows the company to use these installations for about 15 years, before the permits need to be renewed.
“Neither NASA nor the Space Coast can afford to stand still. We must be aggressive in pursuing this next generation of space exploration – and the jobs and innovation that will accompany it,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden explained in a recent statement.
“The next era of space exploration won't wait, and so we can't wait for Congress to do its job and give our space program the funding it needs,” US President Barack Obama added recently.
“That's why my Administration will be pressing forward, in partnership with Space Florida and the private sector, to create jobs and make sure America continues to lead the world in exploration and discovery,” the Commander-in-Chief added.
Bob Cabana, the director of the KSC, says that the new contract will help NASA maintain facilities and assets at the spaceport. These buildings and capabilities would have otherwise remained uncared for, due to NASA's diminishing resources.