Space Florida CEO shares how Cecil fits into statewide goals (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — Space Florida has ambitious plans for spurring economic growth in the state with aerospace development, and Cecil Airport and Spaceport is becoming a key asset.
During a media tour of the Jacksonville Aviation Authority’s portion of the former naval base on Tuesday, Space Florida CEO Rob Long explained how different agencies across the state can access a broad support system from the aerospace finance and development authority.
“In fact, if you look at our definition of aerospace in our statute,” Long said “It’s actually a relatively broad definition. It allows us to work on any number of projects and several here in Northeast Florida.”
The aerospace development agency’s access to capital is crucial for agencies across Florida, as each one has vast funding needs to build up infrastructure to attract new astronomical technology companies, along with research and development institutions.
Long pointed out that Space Florida helped support the development of BAE Systems’ new Pearlson shiplift, which was unveiled last year. While that might not seem to be space-related, the ships that BAE props up for repairs can act as missile platforms, the state’s aerospace development leader said.
The project speaks to the variety of ways aerospace projects are being used as a catalyst for state funding to directly and indirectly support economic growth for some of the most prominent companies in Northeast Florida.
It’s a model that can be applied statewide, Long said. It just so happens Jacksonville has the perfect momentum and assets for expanding Florida’s capabilities in space travel and supporting other industries with the growth.
As Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral stands as the most recognizable astronomical landmark in Florida, Long said the state wants to widen its scope and avoid concentrating all of its resources into one area.
The Brevard County vertical launch site is most known for those precise types of operations.
In turn, the Space Florida CEO said that diversifying activities requires a larger footprint.
“If you’re doing engine testing, you don’t want to limit your vertical launches,” Long said. “So doing that in another location in our integrated system makes a heck of a lot of sense.”
Cecil’s abundance of open land and assortment of assets from its days as a naval air station provide the perfect mix of old and new for prospective companies.
Companies such as Hermeus and Otto Aviation have taken advantage of the site’s aging infrastructure to gain a head start in its development on-site.
Hermeus, in particular, said that despite the age of the buildings it is using for its facilities, the bones were still in good enough shape to provide a sufficient shell for their testing needs – in addition to significant cost savings.
The additional advantage, which Space Florida aims to help support, is Cecil’s proximity to other industries. Unlike spaceports in the middle of the Mojave Desert or other remote areas of the Southwest, health care and technology companies less than an hour’s drive away from Cecil are positioned to benefit from aerospace investment at the airport.
“You might want to exploit whatever that system or that thing is that’s created in space, near the location where it comes back, and so there’s a lot of benefit there, too,” Long said.
In Jacksonville, that model is being applied in the pursuit of a reentry license in collaboration with Intuitive Machines, which has proposed carrying research samples from Mayo Clinic into space and bringing them back to Earth at Cecil Airport to then be transported back to the healthcare institution’s Jacksonville facilities.
Long said that type of synergy can be replicated statewide.
“Reentry is another one that, over time, I think, is a market that we’ll see develop,” he said. “And so those opportunities can be in other places across the state.”