A San Francisco startup aiming to supply fuel to satellites in orbit — calling its service “the gas station in space” — is moving its headquarters to Colorado and foresees adding almost 200 jobs there eventually.
Orbit Fab, a 15-person company, last week received approval for as much as $4.62 million in Coloraxo job-growth tax rebates if it adds the 196 positions it projects. The company also looked at Texas and Florida as possible headquarters locations.
“While there are several states with an aerospace presence in the U.S., Colorado made the most sense for our team,” said Daniel Faber, CEO at Orbit Fab. "We have no doubt that we’ll hit the ground running in Denver.”
Orbit Fab expects to add jobs in aerospace and software engineering, in addition to technicians and business development professionals, and the average annual wage for the positions is anticipated to be $95,867, which is double the average wage in the counties they’re considering for headquarters, the state said.
Satellites today are limited by the amount of fuel they can carry that helps them maintain their position in orbit. After their fuel is depleted, satellites fall out of orbits and burn up reentering Earth’s atmosphere.
But with it getting cheaper to get refueling equipment into orbit, there is more attention on the idea of refueling satellites to extend their lives.
Orbit Fab’s first test “fuel depot” satellite, known as Tanker-001 Tenzing, launched in orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket June 30. Tenzing stores the non-toxic “green” propellant high-test peroxide.
The company became the first private business to resupply water to the International Space Station in a 2019 test of its fluids delivery system.
