US university commits $500mn to construction including a space institute

Render of the future Texas A&M University Space Institute located at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. (Image courtesy Texas A&M)

The project was first unveiled in 2023, but it received the go-ahead from the university system’s Board of Regents earlier this week.

The space facility is expected to be four storeys, span 32 acres and assist “scientists and other personnel at the facility will support mission training, aeronautics research, advanced robotics and work on lunar and Martian exploration.”

Construction is expected to start in 2025.

Also approved in the half-a-billion dollar package was construction of a new veterinary medicine facility (valued around $181 million), a hypersonic wind tunnel for defence and aerodynamics research (valued around $10 million), and various upgrades to facilities across the campus.

Render of Texas A&M University’s veterinary hospital building, which could start construction early next year. (Image courtesy Texas A&M)

MEI installs lunar habitat mockup at Space Center Houston An early, full-scale mockup of astronaut accommodations designed for a space station orbiting the moon has been installed.