ON THE COVER

Central Texas is blasting off for the space race, with several hightech industries setting up shop in the area, including Melagen Labs in Taylor, Firefly Aerospace in Cedar Park, SpaceX in Bastrop and CesiumAstro in Austin. See the story on page 07. Courtesy photo Texas has been associated with mankind’s quest to slip the bonds of gravity ever since the nation first heard chatter between astronauts and Mission Control at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in the Houston area.

TECH

BOLAFSFT Space industry rocketing to new heights in Williamson County

Not to be outdone, Williamson County and the Greater Austin area are lifting off in a quest to help conquer space.

Moon landers, rockets, satellites and specialized labs are all now part of the space industry mix emerging in Central Texas.

On June 22, local dignitaries and company founders gathered in the shell of a building at 1901 Industrial Drive to celebrate Taylor’s first entry into space-related activity with Melagen Labs.

The Brooklyn, N.Y.-based company focused its search for a new radiation testing facility in Florida, Oklahoma and Texas.

What they found in Central Texas were companies such as Cedar Park’s planetary lander and rocket company Firefly Aerospace, SpaceX’s satellite manufacturing facility in neighboring Bastrop County and an expanding Austin presence for aerospace defense communications systems company CesiumAstro.

All of these are potential clients for Melagen’s radiation-testing services along with other advanced manufacturing firms such as Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., which opens its massive Taylor semiconductor fabrication plant later this year.

“Taylor is transforming quite a bit in our target sectors,” said Ben White, CEO of the Taylor Economic Development Corp.

The EDC is now talking with at least five companies in the aerospace and defense manufacturing arena, White said.

SPACE HUB

Williamson County is expected to become even more of a hub for space-related companies thanks to the development of a spaceport in Cedar Park.

The Central Texas Spaceport Development Corp. was launched just over a year ago with the approval of Williamson County commissioners.

Firefly, which developed the Blue Ghost lander that successfully touched down on the near side of the moon, is behind the $78 million, four-building facility at the spaceport in Cedar Park.

The sixth spaceport development corporation established by local governments in Texas, the Williamson County spaceport project in conjunction with Cedar Park is expected to add to the existing draw of being near other aerospace and defense contractors, “With this joint venture, we are strengthening our position at the forefront of the new space economy, while also creating opportunities for job growth, investment and technological leadership,” Cedar Park Mayor Jim Penniman-Morin said when announcing the partnership last summer. “Together with our county and state partners, we’re laying the foundation for a future where Cedar Park and Central Texas are known globally as a hub for space exploration and aerospace innovation.”

Hutto also is in the hunt, likely with several other sites near the Interstate 35 corridor, for a large aerospace manufacturer that could bring as many as 2,000 jobs. While details of the initiative dubbed Project Blue Hub are under wraps – Hutto’s Economic Development Corp. board discussed it in a closed executive session in May – it is widely believed to be Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ rocket company Blue Origin Logistics.

The project Hutto EDC considered for performance-based economic incentives in May includes manufacturing, warehouse and research and development operations in 1.3 million square feet of space and $650 million capital investment.

The 2,000 jobs over five years would have an average salary of $88,000.

Several Williamson County cities are said to be making a pitch for the Blue Origin site, according to previous reporting by the Austin Business Journal.

Bastrop County, as a home to a major SpaceX manufacturing facility for StarLink satellites and cheaper land than neighboring Travis County, also is getting looks for aerospace and defense company expansions.

Acutronic USA Inc., a subsidiary of Acutronic Group AG of Switzerland, is expected to break ground for the buildout of a 14-acre manufacturing site in a Bastrop industrial park. The firm’s aerospace components operations are based in Austin.

This is all part of the bustling economy that drew the founders of Melagen to pick East Williamson County as its new headquarters and transition operations out of New York’s borough of Brooklyn.

MELAGENANDTAYLOR

The company founders said the Taylor EDC and city officials moved fast to do in months what could have taken two years in other places, including securing a building to lease and finding the funds to get the new operation up and running.

Radiation in space can damage sensitive electronic equipment used to monitor, collect data or conduct experiments. It is costly and timeconsuming to manufacture components such as semiconductor chips to be “hardened” against radiation.

Instead, the trend now is to use off-theshelf technology whenever possible and shield it from the radiation, said Melagen’s co-founder and CEO Muhammad Hunain. The startup developed composite-materials shielding for those components in the form of its first product known as MLC.

That technology is getting a test mounted outside of the International Space Station in December to see how well it protects the data and computing infrastructure of a client working to create virtual data centers in space.

Some of that can be simulated on terra firma, but one of the problems for companies that want to test how their tech will fare in space is that there are only a handful of labs that can do the gamma irradiation tests to mimic what it will experience in space. Trained technicians also are few.

The Taylor facility, which will eventually have about 25 employees in the next few years, will use cobalt-60 in-house to test protection against radiation for clients.

They also hope to team up with area medical centers that have proton treatment. Through those partnerships, Melagen would use the accelerators during overnight off hours.

University-owned proton accelerators often allow the use of their technology for the kind of testing Melagen will do, but they have a backlog of requests.

While some Taylor residents have expressed concern, the company presented officials who explained the testing is safe.

“Radiation is a scary term,” said Hari Mahesh, co-founder of Melagen. “Everything is going to be fully selfcontained. People have been normalized to think, ‘OK, it’s a medical facility, it’s going to have protections.’ We’re going to do the same things. Of course they call it proton therapy or radiation therapy. We call it radiation testing, but it is literally the same equipment with the same (safety) requirement if not more stringent.”

The company wants to train people from other industries such as oil and gas, automotive and aviation to use their existing skills to apply to radiation testing. Melagan also plans to offer internships for local and area students in the future.

Company executives also want to create an environment that welcomes other startups to locate around them, sharing resources in a co-workspace that would bring even more aerospacecompatible companies into Taylor, Mahesh said.

“It’s really an exciting time,” Hunain said. “This is something that keeps us going and keeps us up to know that our technology will be on the ISS and shielding equipment on the moon.”