The satellite location is part of Tory Bruno’s corporate strategy to resolve the challenges of an increasingly competitive playing field amid shrinking military budgets. “ULA had several other choices and (they) really preferred Pueblo: We have a small town feel, we’re super friendly, we don’t have bugs, we don’t have humidity and we don’t have a traffic report.” “The dollars out of pocket to bring them to Pueblo were really minimal - the major reason is we really worked with them,” Markuson said. The company also is expected to apply for state enterprise zone credits available to businesses willing to invest in economically distressed areas, including Pueblo. The city and county of Pueblo sweetened the pot with building improvement funds, a $2 million grant from the city’s half-cent tax incentive fund, and a 50 percent county property tax credit of about $25,000 a year. ULA will invest more than $5 million to retrofit the building. That history - and the fact Pueblo was able to meet ULA’s aggressive timetable - played heavily in the final decision, Roberts said.Īn incentive package sealed the deal, he said. “It’s a very unique capability to test to the levels, the temperatures, all the degrees that you have to run in a rocket program,” ULA’s director of propulsion systems Bob Roberts said.Īnd those tests could start as soon as September, Roberts said.īoeing, one of ULA’s two joint venture partners, started developing the Delta II rocket in Pueblo and has maintained some presence in the city since 1986. This includes strict NASA qualification rules for missions carrying humans into space. The work is intended to help the company’s existing Atlas and Delta rockets - expected to take missions into space through 20 - and the company’s new Vulcan launch system, which will replace the legacy rockets, to meet crucial regulations. “What we’re doing is trying to take some of the testing, and things we’ve previously put out to suppliers, and bring it in house,” company spokeswoman Jessica Rye said. The facility will house a combination of testing and manufacturing operations, including shaker tables and thermal chambers for testing loads and rocket components, and a machine shop to create small components such as manifolds, actuators and valves.
ULA, which already has six people working in Pueblo, expects to have another 15 people at the new location by the end of 2015, and has committed to have at least 34 people working there by October 2017. The building previously held the now-defunct jetmaker Adam Aircraft, and, most recently, was used for a hemp cloning operation. ULA inked a lease for 310 Keeler Parkway, a 28,000-square-foot building about a half-mile from Pueblo Airport. Pueblo lands United Launch Alliance rocket R&D operation – The Denver Post