Dowagiac is one of about a dozen cities under consideration as the future site of the Michigan Aerospace Manufacturers Association’s Command & Control Center for the Michigan Launch Initiative, a plan to create a regional spaceport in Michigan.
Gavin Brown is the Executive Director of the Michigan Aerospace Manufacturers Association (MAMA) and he explained what sort of missions the organization hopes to launch from Michigan.
"All of the assets that we’re looking at are looking at supporting earth orbits as opposed to deep space missions either to the moon or beyond," Brown said.
One project MAMA is eyeing is the effort to create a 5G network of low earth satellites to provide low cost internet services to rural America.
"So that the 5G satellites and the ecosystem around that can be delivered from a mid-America spaceport," Brown explained.
The Command & Control Center, which Dowagiac is being considered for, would coordinate the efforts of a planned horizontal launch site in Oscoda and a planned vertical launch site in Marquette as well as track satellites and provide uplink and downlink data streams.
Brown said the center could, potentially, mean a significant number of jobs for the community.
"Literally, both direct and indirect jobs, up to about 1,200," Brown added.
An announcement on the site selection is expected in January.