Firefly's Successful Mission, BAE Systems' New Facility, and More Austin Tech News

From rocket launches to online marriage licenses, Austin’s wide-ranging tech scene showed signs of growth last week with new facilities, partnerships and other announcements. Catch up on the news you may have missed with the Built In Austin Weekly Refresh.
BAE Systems unveiled a new facility. The defense contractor opened the doors to a $150 million facility in the Parmer Austin business park last week. Its previous campus spanned multiple buildings totaling 539,000 square feet, but the new 390,000-square-foot facility offers a more modern and collaborative space where employees can work under the same roof. The facility is home to the company’s electronic systems division, which plans to double its Austin workforce from 700 to 1,400 employees over the next several years. [Built In Austin]
Firefly Aerospace reached orbit. After launching on Oct. 1, the company’s Alpha rocket successfully reached orbit and deployed three customer payloads as part of its Alpha FLTA002 mission. Firefly’s first Alpha mission in September 2021 was unsuccessful. With the success of this most recent mission, Firefly said it is the first company to launch and reach orbit from U.S. soil in only its second attempt. [Firefly Aerospace]
GovOS’ new marriage licensing platform was approved by the state’s Office of Court Administration. GovOS’ Remote Marriage License Issuance System brings the marriage licensing process completely online, making in-person visits a thing of the past. Two Texas counties have already received state certification to use the software. The approval from the OCA provides assurances to Texas counties that the software meets the state’s requirements. [Built In Austin]
Striveworks partnered with Protopia AI. The two Austin startups announced last week that they have entered into a strategic partnership that allows businesses to leverage Protopia’s data protection technology in Striveworks’ machine learning operations (MLOps) platform. This solution ensures data owners maintain control of sensitive data throughout the machine learning lifecycle, which is important for companies in highly-regulated industries. [PR Newswire]