Redwire to break ground on Floyd County operations center
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Florida-based Redwire Corp. on Friday will mark the beginning of construction on its microgravity payload development facility at the new Novaparke Innovation & Technology Campus in Floyd County. The new facility, when complete, is expected to bring 25 new jobs.
Redwire produces a variety of technologies that support microgravity research and development in space.
Plans for the facility were first announced last July. Redwire, which acquired Greenville-based Techshot Inc. in 2021, says the facility is designed to increase the company’s ability to meet growing demand for in-space manufacturing and microgravity research.
The 30,000-square-foot facility will add more laboratory space and a much larger Payload Operations Control Center, or mission control center, where engineers can communicate directly with astronauts operating Redwire equipment aboard the International Space Station.
Over the last year, Redwire has successfully 3D bioprinted a human meniscus and live human heart tissue using its BioFabrication Facility aboard the ISS.
“We believe that the [meniscus] tissue we manufactured in space is just as good as what the human body produces, and we think that this is a game changer,” Vice President of Corporate Advancement Rich Boling told Business of Health Reporter Kylie Veleta in September.
Among the other projects the new facility will support is Redwire’s platform designed to grow small-batch crystals of protein-based pharmaceuticals and other key pharmaceutically relevant molecules for research and production.
The company is partnering with Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. to conduct critical testing during the initial flight missions for the Pharmaceutical In-space Laboratory – Bio-crystal Optimization Xperiment, or PIL-BOX. The first mission is scheduled for November.
Construction of the new Novaparke facility is expected to take about 15 months to complete.