Lockheed Martin Space Systems officially christened the new headquarters for its Commercial Space division at its Denver facility Oct. 29 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The division was relocated from Newtown, Pennsylvania, as part of a wider reorganization at Lockheed Martin. Much of Lockheed Martin’s government space business, including production lines for the GPS 3 navigation satellites and the civilian GOES geostationary weather satellites, is in the Denver area.
Lockheed Martin is redoubling its efforts to win commercial business as its government satellite development and production programs wind down from their peak years. For the last decade or so, the company has been all but absent from the commercial communications satellite market.
As part of that effort, Lockheed Martin is revamping its signature A2100 satellite offering to increase its flexibility and producibility while lowering its cost. The new Denver headquarters will house the engineering, program management and operations of the A2100 line, Lockheed Martin said.
“The consolidation into our new headquarters and the technical refresh of our workhorse A2100 satellite platform will position Lockheed Martin to be a leader in the global commercial space market for years to come,” Mike Hamel, vice president and general manager of commercial space at Lockheed Martin, said in a prepared statement. “Multiple A2100-based programs, including GPS-III and GOES-R, are produced here in Denver today and this site will be the center of excellence for design and production of the most capable and affordable satellites in the industry.”
