POWAY, CA — The world’s first publicly traded commercial space exploration and development company, SpaceDev, has constructed its new Satellite Assembly and Test (SAT) facility complete with 1,800 square feet of cleanroom space.

The facility includes ISO Class 8 (Class 100,000) cleanroom space and includes laminar flow benches to support special ISO Class 5 (Class 100) activities. The site also hosts enough workspace to assemble and test up to eight CHIPSat-class or deep space micro-mission spacecraft, or up to 16 SpaceDev’s orbital Maneuvering and Transfer Vehicles.

CHIPSat is one of the smallest and least expensive missions ever approved and funded by NASA.

“We’re very happy to dedicate and open this important facility that enables full end-to-end flight system development capability at SpaceDev,” said Stan Dubyn, president and COO of SpaceDev.

The facility, adjacent to the Mission Operations Center at SpaceDev’s Poway headquarters, will support the assembly, manufacturing, integration, test and checkout of avionics, power, telecom, structure and propulsion components and subsystems; earth orbiting satellites; and deep space flight systems.