World Space Week 2025
Celebrating World Space Week: Building the Foundations for Life Beyond Earth
What is World Space Week?
Every year since 1999, from October 4–10, millions celebrate World Space Week. This has become the largest annual space event on Earth. This week celebrates pivotal steps in human space exploration: the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, mankind’s first step into orbit, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, first steps on the moon, and building and living in the International Space Station, which established principles for peaceful space exploration.
Each of these steps leads to this year’s theme, “Living in Space.” which represents humanity’s boldest frontier: our transition from visiting space to calling it home. This week focuses on the challenges, technologies, and collaborations that will be needed to make permanent space habitation for humanity a reality.
How The Austin Company Contributes
Every advanced aerospace facility Austin designs and builds moves us all closer to that future of living in space.
Assured Access to Space
Reliable access to space is supported by a network of spaceports, and governmental and commercial partnerships engaged in the delivery of national security and civilian payloads. Key elements include modernizing launch capabilities, and reusable launch vehicles to provide reliable and increasingly more affordable access to space – something that we are seeing change rapidly.
Austin has served Northrop Grumman and its heritage companies at Space Park in Redondo Beach, CA for nearly 40 years. Space Park has served as a primary site for design, engineering, and manufacturing of satellites since the early 1960’s. Most recently, the final assembly, integration, and testing of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope took place at Space Park. Austin was on-site at the time, building new facilities for the next generation of satellites. Austin’s services include strategic planning, design, and construction of facilities—from program and engineering offices to “super” high bays for final assembly and testing
Austin’ most recent space exploration related work also includes projects for L3Harris Technologies and Aerojet Rocketdyne with the modernization of classified facilities designed and constructed by Austin to support RS-25 rocket engines for NASA’s Artemis missions, and a new $100 million, 94,000 SF satellite integration and test facility to support the “Golden Dome for America” defense system.
United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Decatur facility in Alabama is a 1.5 million SF plant (originally designed and constructed by Austin for Boeing) where ULA manufactures and assembles its heavy-lift rockets—most notably the Atlas V and Delta IV—and today the new Vulcan Centaur rocket. Completed rockets are then transported from Decatur to launch sites in Florida and California.
Lunar Permanence – Before humans can live among the stars, the groundwork happens here on Earth. The establishment of long-term, sustainable human presence on the Moon, referred to as Lunar Permanence, involves building permanent infrastructure, using lunar resources to become self-sustaining, and creating a foundational platform for further space exploration.
Austin, along with Blue Origin is celebrating Austin’s delivery of their newest manufacturing building, Lunar Plant 1 at Blue Origin’s Rocket Park campus in Merritt Island, FL. This new facility is dedicated to Blue Origin’s crewed Blue Moon lander for future Artemis missions to take astronauts back to the lunar surface. The Lunar Plant 1 facility spans 204,000 SF with its primary purpose to serve as an assembly, testing, integration, and encapsulation hub for flight hardware supporting Blue Origin’s Lunar development program. The facility was designed and constructed by Austin.
These projects touch upon Austin’s ability to deliver highly specialized environments, from ICD 705 secure program and engineering offices to cleanrooms to manufacturing and assembly high bays with 100+ foot hook heights for handling massive space components. The expertise Austin brings to aerospace projects is both engineering and construction expertise as well as in-depth knowledge of the highly technical facility requirements needed to ensure our clients predictable results. But, Austin is more than just a designer and constructor of buildings; Austin is a key partner in these unique spaces are where dreams of life in space and are assembled to take humanity to the next chapter.
From Sputnik’s Signal to Space Cities
In 1957, when Sputnik transmitted its first signals from orbit, that marked the beginnings of modern-day space exploration. Right now, we are planning for lunar bases, commercial space stations, and research facilities beyond earth.
The infrastructure making this possible starts with Earth-based facilities. The same engineering standards Austin applies to rocket factories and research hubs today will support the manufacturing of habitat modules, life support systems, and space-based manufacturing equipment tomorrow.
Building the Future Today
The Austin Company is helping to build the foundations for living in space tomorrow. With every aerospace facility we design and construct, whether it’s enabling advanced space research, rocket production, or facilities to manufacture components for space habitats, we are contributing to humanity’s greatest adventure.
Ready to explore how aerospace-grade precision can transform your next project? Connect with Lynn Huff and discover what’s possible when engineering excellence meets humanity’s boldest dreams.