Building a satellite constellation requires you to mass-produce spacecraft with reliable high quality at an ever-decreasing cost based on continuous innovation. It takes a satellite assembly line – something that has never existed before. It takes a massive international supply chain that can deliver high-quality components and assemblies on time. It takes robot-assisted assembly and automated testing systems.

It also takes people – not the usual PhDs and engineers but technician-level employees with the specific skills needed to produce spacecraft. And there just aren’t enough of them, not even on the Space Coast of Florida, where so much innovation is taking place.

If there aren’t enough qualified people to staff your assembly line, it’s up to you to create them. That’s what OneWeb Satellites did on the Florida Space Coast. The joint European and American venture, combining the efforts of Airbus and OneWeb, foresaw the challenge of staffing its new assembly facility, which opened in Merritt Island, Florida in 2017. It led a multi-company effort to design, gain certification and establish funding for a European-style apprenticeship program that will train high-school graduates (and eventually high-school students) in mechatronics, fiber composites manufacturing and advanced machining.

You can learn more about their efforts, challenges, and successes in SSPI’s report Making Leaders: Staffing the Space Assembly Line, sponsored by OneWeb Satellites. The report is free for SSPI Members and available for purchase by others.