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Kea Aerospace has opened a 3,000 square metre manufacturing and operations facility in Christchurch, giving the company room to build and fly its solar powered stratospheric aircraft at scale.
The site has been customised for the Kea Atmos Mk2, a 35 metre wingspan aircraft designed to fly in the stratosphere for long periods without landing. It provides the space to manufacture, assemble and test aircraft, with capacity to expand into a plant capable of producing hundreds of them.
Kea Aerospace is based in central Christchurch and develops high altitude, long endurance aircraft that collect data from the stratosphere.
A dedicated mission control centre is built into the facility, allowing staff to remotely operate and monitor flight tests as they happen, with command, control and live data analysis in one room.
The facility was opened by Defence and Space Minister Chris Penk, who unveiled a commemorative plaque at the event.
“This is a step-change moment for Kea,” Kea Aerospace chief executive Mark Rocket said. “We now have the infrastructure to build and operate our aircraft at scale, and a mission control that allows us to run increasingly sophisticated flight operations. It’s about moving from proving the technology to deploying it.
Part of the site has been set aside for the next two years for other aerospace companies to use, in what the company intends to become Christchurch’s first dedicated aerospace hub.
“We’re not just building aircraft, we’re building capability,” Rocket said. “By opening part of this facility to other aerospace companies, we’re creating a launchpad for the wider industry.”
The building sits on a street named after Sir William Pickering, the New Zealand born scientist who went on to direct NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The Atmos Mk2 is designed to operate above 60,000 feet, more than a third higher than a typical international airline flight. The stratosphere sits above the troposphere and begins at about 33,000 feet at mid latitudes, higher near the equator and lower over the poles.
