The New Mexico Spaceport Authority board recently added a high-ranking official from an aerospace firm.
Stephanie Luongo, chief of mission operations for aerospace company Sceye, was appointed to the board Feb. 23.
Luongo began her career at Sierra Nevada Corp. as a systems engineer and was a part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program at Sierra Nevada, she told Business First in a series of statements provided by Spaceport spokeswoman Alice Carruth. Furthermore, Luongo was also a "launch operations engineer for Blue Origin’s New Glenn heavy lift rocket," according to her statements.
Meanwhile, board member Michelle Coons has submitted her resignation, ending her tenure on the board.
“My term officially ended... and it came up during this legislative session so I have fulfilled my six-year term,” Coons said during a March 11 meeting of the Spaceport Authority Board. “It's been a pleasure and an honor, but I did submit my resignation.”
Coons, who was unable to be reached for comment Monday, is the New Mexico regional president for WaFd Bank, based in Seattle.
New Mexico Economic Development Department Secretary Alicia J. Keyes said she asked Coons to "stay on until we find a replacement for her [sic.] the finance side of things."
New hires on the horizon
Moving forward, there may be other staffing changes at Spaceport America, which plans to to add to its full-time workforce.
Spaceport America employs about 21 full-time employees, although executive director Scott McLaughlin said during Friday's meeting that "we're going to hire up to about 28 people" — or add about seven people.
"As for whether, all our customers and especially Virgin [Galactic] when we're running, if we have somebody sick or on vacation, we don't want to be in a position of not being able to run the Spaceport. So we're going to make sure we have backups for all the critical positions and then we'll be filling some other positions as well," McLaughlin said.
Potential tenants at new building
The Spaceport is also planning a "technology and reception center," according to McLaughlin.
"We'll have an IT room, and then we'll basically have a reception center that's going to be used for security and meeting rooms and other events," he said. "It's meant to be a working building onsite for our customers to lease and for Spaceport America to host events. So... we're almost past the conceptual stage and we'll be working on [a request for proposals] in the next few months."
On the topic of commercial operations, according to McLaughlin, "we are working on some long-term leases for a couple of tenants that we're under NDA." Additionally, there are "several leads for small rocket tests," he said. Later this year, Virgin Galactic, which is the Spaceport's anchor tenant, plans to start launching paying customers.
Another Spaceport tenant is SpinLaunch, a startup that uses kinetic energy to catapult rockets into the sky. SpinLaunch's first launch took place in October, and McLaughlin said "I think right now, they're firing about every two or three weeks, and we expect that cadence to keep up and for them to continue out through the year."
