Arizona eyes space expansion in move to boost industry

PHOENIX - Arizonans and Arizona companies had a massive role in making missions like Artemis II possible. Many of them came together on April 29 in the first ever "Space Congress" to grow the space industry in the state. 

Local perspective:

For years, Intuitive Machines has been perfecting their lunar rover, hoping NASA picked them for the Artemis missions. 

"Some of the original design for how the rover is moving, and wheel design was developed at Arizona State," said Megan Henriksen of Intuitive Machines.

The Houston-based company has a large Arizona footprint, which is why they're at the first ever Arizona Space Congress. 

"We've got our five C's, and the sixth C in Arizona should be cosmos," said Brett Mecum of the Arizona Space Commission.

By the numbers:

The cosmos came to downtown Phoenix because the space sector is prominent in Arizona, with more than 1,300 companies in the supply chain locally and nearly $30 billion in economic impact. 

Big picture view:

Taryn Struck with Space Rising created the Space Congress so that this massive sweeping industry can work together. 

"We have so much here we have all the parts its just about connecting them now across all the sectors. That's the challenge were trying to accomplish," Struck said.

One thing Arizona doesn't have is a launch pad. but Yuma is trying to change that in the next two to three years. 

"There is just such congestion in the four existing facilities around the country that the needs of Yuma are now," Mecum said.

Dig deeper:

Sierra Vista is applying to have a re-entry spaceport too and have already inked a deal with Blackstar Orbital, which launches satellites, but lands them like a space plane. Fort Huachuca is also getting a new mission. 

"We're rumored to be potentially getting a separate space force mission of 160 personnel at Fort Huachuca in the near future," Mecum said.

"Once those are in place, man, giddy up. We're going to be rocking and rolling. There are going to be a lot of jobs here and commercial companies here and there is going to be a boom. It's like the next gold boom really," Struck said.