Boeing would pay $1 million a year for KSC facilities

COCOA BEACH – If it wins a NASA contract in the coming weeks, Boeing would pay up to $1 million annually to rent Kennedy Space Center facilities to assemble and refurbish the spacecraft it would use for commercial flights of astronauts to the International Space Station.

Under terms Space Florida's board approved today, the company would be expected to sign a 10-year lease of a former space shuttle hangar, main engine shop and offices effective in January, after renovations are completed.

"It's very key for us," said Howard Haug, Space Florida's treasurer and chief investment officer.

The lease terms were detailed as NASA nears an announcement — expected this month or next — of which company, or companies, it has chosen to resume launches of crews from the Space Coast on privately operated rockets and spacecraft.

Crews have relied exclusively on Russian vehicles for rides to the station since the shuttle's retirement in 2011. NASA hopes at least one commercial system is ready by late 2017.

Space Florida expects to spend $20 million on renovations to the KSC facilities including Orbiter Processing Facility-3, where Boeing hopes to assemble and refurbish its CST-100 capsules.

Haug said Boeing — which was referred to only by the once-secret deal's project name of "Syros" — planned to invest roughly $60 million in capital improvements.

Boeing nearly three years ago publicly announced plans to lease the facilities that would serve as its headquarters for a commercial crew program employing up to 550 people.

The company this summer has been wrapping up design of the capsule, which it has been developing since 2010 with the help of more than $600 million from NASA's Commercial Crew Program. That program is led from KSC.

The CST-100 would be assembled and refurbished at KSC and launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

Terms disclosed Wednesday would require Boeing to commit to a temporary agreement within 30 days of winning a NASA contract, specifying how much of the renovated space it wants — expected to be all of it.

After the initial 10-year lease, the company could exercise three one-year extensions.

If Boeing does not win a commercial crew contract, Space Florida anticipates the KSC facilities will attract interest from the other competitors, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp.

In other business during today's meeting at the Hilton Cocoa Beach Oceanfront, Space Florida's board signed off on a $12.5 million operating budget the state Legislature approved for the fiscal year that began July 1.

The board also approved negotiations of a deal with Lockheed Martin to use the Cape-side Satellite Assembly Building to support potential launches of Athena rockets, formalizing an existing arrangement.

In the afternoon, the eight members of the 13-person board present at the meeting took a bus tour of facilities at KSC and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which many had never seen.

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com.