A new production facility in Irvine being built for Terran Orbital Corp. (NYSE: LLAP), expected to open next year, is designed to help the small-satellite maker produce “multiples” of the 250 satellites the company previously expected to build annually.
The upstart aerospace firm late last month confirmed plans to expand its Irvine operations to a 94,000-square-foot facility now under development in the Spectrum area of the city, near Bake Parkway and the Irvine-Lake Forest city line.
The Business Journal on March 20 was first to report on the new facility at 4 Goodyear for Terran, which is based in Boca Raton, Fla., but has a majority of its operations in Irvine, including a new 60,000-square-foot facility along Barranca Parkway in the city that is set to become operational this month.
The company is among the fastest-growing tech firms in the area, both in terms of its real estate footprint and local employee count, which ran well over 300 as of August. A hiring push is under way.
It counts north of 300,000 square feet office and industrial space in the city, factoring in its latest lease.
94K SF
The just-commissioned 60,000-square-foot Barranca facility, “once fully ramped, is expected to support the buildup up to 250 satellites per year,” CEO Marc Bell told analysts after the Business Journal report, following its latest quarterly earnings report.
“In addition, we are thrilled to announce today our next capacity expansion step, an incremental 94,000 square feet of lease manufacturing and assembly space, also in Irvine,” Bell said following the company’s latest earnings report.
“This new facility, which has already begun construction will have 36-foot-high bay assembly space to accommodate the complete assembly and integration of larger size satellites along with their payloads,” he said.
“When fully ramped, this addition has a potential to raise our satellite capacity to multiples of our prior 250 per year target.”
Terran’s small satellites typically run in the 300-kilogram (660-pound) to 500-kilogram range, for customers in the aerospace and defense industries.
The company’s long-term plans call for production of around 1,000 satellites a year. It reported delivering 19 satellites last year.
Florida’s Loss, OC’s Gain
The new lease comes a few months after Terran abandoned plans to build a $300 million new hub along Florida’s Space Coast, so that it could expand at a faster pace in Irvine, where the company has also operated under the Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems name.
Terran, which reported 2022 revenue of $94.2 million, a 130% boost from 2021, is aiming to become a major force for both U.S. defense and commercial aerospace industry.
The company in February announced a $2.4 billion contract to build 300 low-Earth-orbit satellites for Rivada Space Networks, with a customer option for 300 more.
In October 2022, it completed a new $100 million investment with partner Lockheed Martin.
It’s also involved in the U.S.’s planned return to the moon; Terran developed LunIR, a moon-mapping satellite about the size of a microwave oven that weighs 24-pounds and was launched in November.
While the company is growing rapidly, it had a 2022 net loss of $164 million compared to net loss of $139 million in 2021.
As of early last week, shares were trading at $1.67 a piece, up almost 6% so far this year, though still well below the $10 price Terran went public at a year ago via a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company, commonly known as a SPAC. Terran counted a market cap of $241 million as of March 27.
