Spaceport presentation: state to own Dawn Aerospace vehicle under incentive; OSIDA seeks $7.5M hangar and $1.1M recurring ops increase

During the subcommittee hearing Director Ardies also presented for the Space Industry Development Authority (OSIDA), describing the agency's merger into the Oklahoma Department of Aerospace and Aeronautics and a suite of projects at the Oklahoma Air and Space Port. He told members the state will acquire a manufacturing variant of Dawn Aerospace's Aurora spaceplane as part of an economic development deal structured under the Department of Commerce's new product development tax incentive, which the agency says requires state ownership of qualifying assets. Ardies said Dawn Aerospace will operate the vehicle under the agreement.

Committee members voiced concern about the arrangement. Representative CrossFit Hader asked whether the state obtained contract protections to prevent private firms from using state-funded development to compete commercially; Ardies said the deal was negotiated by Commerce and ODFA and that the state is implementing the agreement as structured, but he recommended questions about incentive terms be directed to Commerce. On financial upside, Ardies said he could not disclose proprietary commercial terms but that past board members had indicated the program could generate "upwards of $3 to $5 million a year" for the authority if profitable; he also said the agreement includes a royalty back to Commerce—cited in the hearing as $5,000 per revenue flight—separate from 20–25 non‑revenue research flights.

OSIDA requests for FY27 included a $7.5 million one‑time request for a Dawn Aerospace hangar and supporting infrastructure, a $5.0 million terminal building request, water and wastewater line replacements for the industrial park, and a $1.1 million recurring request intended to raise current operations funding from $900,000 to an estimated $2,000,000 annually to cover salaries and day‑to‑day spaceport costs. Ardies said the hangar, office and payload processing facility would be built for Dawn’s exclusive use but sized so it could be repurposed for other tenants if needed in the future; some support infrastructure such as fuel storage could be shared across tenants.

Ardies also described technical and safety steps being taken at the spaceport: installation of additional mobile radar trailers to support beyond‑visual‑line‑of‑sight UAS testing, phased runway and airfield pavement projects, and ongoing water/wastewater system upgrades (noting some pipes dating to 1942 and 1957). He acknowledged the runway had been closed for major rehab and said it should temporarily reopen around Feb. 1 with final finishing work to continue into spring.

Members asked for more detail about how the Dawn agreement was negotiated and oversight of the incentive; Ardies repeatedly pointed to the Department of Commerce and the ODFA as the primary agencies that structure and oversee such economic incentive deals and said OSIDA's board and staff would implement operations. The committee did not vote on any of the FY27 requests during the hearing. The subcommittee adjourned.