Southland's council-owned space company expects to turn over about $5 million this year as construction continues on a $4.55 million headquarters at its Awarua ground station south of Invercargill.

Space Operations New Zealand, known as SpaceOps, is wholly owned by Great South, the regional development agency funded by Southland's four councils. Founder and chief executive Robin McNeill told Local Democracy Reporting the company was "globally important" for spacecraft in low-earth orbit, in an interview published by the Otago Daily Times on Sunday.

The company's core business is hosting antennas for customers who need to talk to their satellites as they pass over the bottom of the world. Its clients include Leaf Space of Italy, the Norwegian company KSAT, and Lockheed Martin, the United States defence contractor. SpaceOps holds more than 700 radio licences and Mr McNeill said the Awarua site supported well over that number of spacecraft and constellations.

It employs 11 people across Awarua and the Warkworth Space Centre north of Auckland, and operates four lines of business: hosting customers' ground stations, leasing its own, space geodesy and radio astronomy, and selling technical expertise.

The Awarua station began in 2004 with a 200,000 euro contract from the European Space Agency to track its vehicles. It has since grown to 32 hectares, funded from the company's own profits, according to the LDR report.

The new headquarters, workshops and supporting infrastructure are backed by up to $2.25 million in Regional Infrastructure Fund lending, announced in September 2025, with SpaceOps co-investing the balance. Construction started at the end of June, when Shane Jones, the Regional Development Minister, visited the site with his associate minister Mark Patterson, Invercargill mayor Tom Campbell and Southland mayor Rob Scott.

The Government said then that about 10 jobs would be created during the build and that the permanent workforce at the site, 21 now, would rise to about 30 high-skill positions once the building is finished, which is expected in early 2027. Mr Campbell told the ODT at the time that showing visiting clients a portacabin had been "a bit of a downbeat".

Mr McNeill said SpaceOps had no written policy on whether it would take work connected to military activity, and had no plans to adopt one. He told LDR that developing a policy the company did not need would take time it did not have, and that some of his staff "would walk out on me" were the company to go down a military route. The company's statement of intent commits it to the peaceful use of space and it is a signatory to the Washington Compact on responsible space behaviour.

Mr McNeill cited a pole-location contract with Land Information New Zealand, the SouthPAN satellite positioning project with Lockheed Martin, and help given to a covert New Zealand Defence Force security operation as examples of work the company had accepted without difficulty. Great South chief executive Chami Abeysinghe, who sits on the SpaceOps board, said the company understood it had to comply with radio spectrum rules, legislation and treaties.

SpaceOps' expansion plans are not without friction. In September the Invercargill City Council held a hearing after Calder Stewart objected to the company's request to designate land and airspace next to the Awarua site, where the Stewart family is developing an industrial estate that includes a wind farm. Calder Stewart has separately warned that height limits around Awarua could cost the region billions in investment. The outcome of that hearing has not yet been released.

The headquarters is due to open in the first months of next year.