Donors and members of UND leadership cut the ribbon Monday on UND's new "National Security Corridor" in Harrington Hall. The new space is set to advance the university's academic offerings for students interested in spacebound technology and expand the university's existing workforce pipeline to military and defense contractors focused on outer space.
The corridor includes dedicated lab space for designing and building satellites and related components, as well as a digital engineering lab that will offer high-tech modeling software to predict a spacebound craft's aerodynamic characteristics.
In addition, a nanofoundry — think of it as a New Space Age forge — is set to develop new materials to be used in satellite construction, as well as fields like quantum computing and cryptography.
"When you create a facility like this and you create a future for our students that sounds captivating and exciting, then they jump aboard," said university President Andy Armacost, citing expansive growth in the aerospace engineering degree launched by UND last year.
Associate Dean of National Security Ryan Adams says the focus on satellite development feeds into UND's existing focus on autonomous systems like unmanned aircraft.
"You can think of a satellite as being a very high unmanned aircraft," Adams said.
The corridor's development is directly linked to the U.S. military's increased focus on space and the new Space Development Agency facility on Grand Forks Air Force Base.
Adams told the Herald that university leadership began looking toward outer space after the organization of the Space Force in 2019. The announcement of the SDA facility operating a network of low-earth orbit satellites bore out that decision.
"Building out our capacity to support space missions makes a lot of sense with what's happening out at Grand Forks Air Force Base," Adams said.
State lawmakers got on board after public comments Armacost made in 2021 suggesting satellites could one day be designed and controlled from Grand Forks. Lawmakers committed $14 million toward the National Security Corridor during the 2021 legislative session.
North Dakota University System Chancellor Mark Hagerott, who arrived at the end of Monday's ceremony, said the new satellite facilities would help serve military research and development needs.
"Our nation is in a high-tech military arms race and North Dakota needs to do its part. UND is helping us do more," Hagerott said.
Adams said he expects the space corridor to provide a steady supply of brainpower to the SDA and its related defense contractors,
echoing comments he made to the Herald in August.
Other national security-linked projects underway at the university include plans to build a "digital twin" of the SDA's satellite operations facility and a secure facility for discussing classified information.
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