Rapidly expanding satellite manufacturer Terran Orbital Corp. has made moves to significantly boost its operations and headcount on both coasts of the U.S., inking one of Orange County’s larger office leases this year at the new 400 Spectrum Center tower, while also announcing plans to invest $300 million for a new commercial spacecraft facility in Florida.
Terran, an aerospace company that as of mid-2021 had launched more than 220 small satellites into orbit through its Irvine satellite affiliate Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems Inc., late last month finalized a deal to lease 89,000 square feet of space at the 400 Spectrum tower, which opened about four years ago, and along with a companion office nearby is Orange County’s tallest building.
The company will soon move into the four floors of space at the Irvine Co.-owned building that it is taking on a sublease, Marc Bell, co-founder and chief executive of Terran Orbital, told the Business Journal.
“I expect to have bodies flowing in there by Oct. 15,” Bell said on Sept. 23.
“We’re very excited about the space. It’s fully built out,” he said.
“We’re expanding our presence in Irvine.”
Hiring Surge
Bell expects to have between 400 and 500 employees working at the Irvine Spectrum tower office, focusing on engineering, design and development work for small satellites.
That will require a big boost in local workers. Terran and its local affiliates employed fewer than 200 people in OC as of earlier this year, according to Business Journal research.
Its Irvine operations have been based at a building along Barranca Parkway, near the city’s train station. That roughly 40,000-square-foot spot is remaining in use by the company and its affiliates.
Bell said “we’re turning Barranca Parkway into our manufacturing [hub in OC],” adding that “probably” 100 people will be located there. “We’re expanding our manufacturing footprint there.”
“We’re hiring fast,” Bell said. “We have a hiring plan over the next three years to bring on about 2,500 more people [company-wide]. We have [already] hired a lot of people.”
The company isn’t shy about publicizing its rush to grow in OC, whose base of defense and aerospace companies and jobs, long headlined by the local operations of Boeing Co., has continued to shrink over the past decade, despite the emergence of other local upstarts like Irvine’s Anduril Industries.
“Terran Orbital encourages those looking for employment, especially those in the engineering field, to please review our website for current opportunities,” the company said in announcing the new Irvine hub.
Florida Hub
The company’s job push is also taking place on Florida’s so-called Space Coast.
Last week, Terran announced plans to establish a manufacturing facility on Merritt Island, at a spot previously holding the NASA Space Shuttle Landing Facility.
Terran’s new hub there, dubbed the Launch and Landing Facility, will soon be home to what’s being called “the world’s largest satellite manufacturing facility,” one running about 660,000 square feet.
With 10 hangars expected to be built, it should be large enough to produce more than 1,000 satellites per year.
Bell said his company will invest over $300 million in new construction and equipment over the next few years.
Partial Move
As part of the changes, Terran has set up headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla., though its Tyvak division will stay based in Irvine.
Tyvak, in addition to its small satellite work, specializes in a variety of other spacecraft development, launch services and on-orbit operations.
Among notable projects, Tyvak has developed and built the spacecraft infrastructure for Capstone, a satellite destined for the NASA lunar-orbit project.
In May, Tyvak said that it hired retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Christian ‘Boris’ Becker as chief executive.
Becker is now the president of Satellite Solutions for Terran Orbital, and he is still based in Irvine.
Tyvak counts a mix of government, commercial and defense clients, providing “a full suite of satellite solutions to our customers in the U.S. and across the globe. It doesn’t disclose revenue.
$6B of Work
Terran’s expansion comes as the demand for satellites grows from both government and commercial customers, and as the base of manufacturers shrinks.
“We’re the last independent manufacturer of small satellites left in the U.S.,” according to Bell.
Bell declined to give details of Terran contracts, but he says: “We’re listed on $6 billion-plus in government programs now.”
“We built the LM-50 bus for Lockheed Martin,” Bell said of the 330-pound spacecraft. A bus refers to the infrastructure of the spacecraft.
Lockheed Martin is a minority investor in Terran, according to Bell. Other institutional investors include Santa Monica-based Beach Point Capital. Bell and other Terran employees and officials also have stakes in the company, he said.
Tyvak’s satellites can run the size of a microwave oven or weigh about 22 lbs. or so. Its least expensive satellites reportedly cost about $500,000.
More expensive satellites run in the tens of millions of dollars, and can run several hundred pounds.
The company’s been getting more work for larger satellites, Bell said.
“They keep getting bigger,” Bell said. Terran also owns PredaSAR, which makes satellites able to see through clouds and darkness.
Bell told the Business Journal in May that Tyvak uses Rocket Lab—formerly based in Huntington Beach, now in Long Beach—Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and Vega to launch its satellites.
“Business is booming,” Bell said.
Cylance’s Loss is Terran’s Gain
Satellite manufacturer Terran Orbital’s Corp.’s expansion at the 400 Spectrum Center office tower comes amid an office retrenching for another prominent local tech-focused firm.
Terran is taking over much, though not all, of the same space where local cybersecurity company Cylance once had its headquarters.
Cylance, co-founded by cybersecurity expert Stuart McClure in 2012, was among the first large tenants signed at the 20-story office tower, leasing some 135,000 square feet, and had its name upon the top of the building for a short time.
The building’s top signage got a name change after Cylance was bought by Waterloo, Canada’s BlackBerry (NYSE: BB) in 2019 for $1.4 billion.
The company’s local operations have largely been in retrenching mode since the sale; McClure departed the company about a year after the sale.
Cylance reportedly boasted 840 local employees in 2018, but the combined firm with BlackBerry was down to 189 locals as of early this year, according to this year’s Business Journal list of top software companies.
The local office of tenant brokerage Savills put much of the company’s space up for sublease after the onset of the pandemic, according to brokerage data.
Terran is subleasing four of the six floors at the tower that were previously occupied by BlackBerry. Another floor of space remains up for lease, and BlackBerry is expected to remain on one floor in the building, where 100 or so employees are expected to work.
JP Roach, senior managing director for the Newport Beach office of Savills, represented Terran Orbital in its 89,000-square-foot lease.
