Aerospace startup Leap leases land east of Aurora to test rockets

An aerospace firm that recently leased land east of Aurora is building a rocket that it hopes will be able to deliver goods to anywhere on the planet within 40 minutes.

“Think of it as FedEx, but in space,” said Sebastian Grabowski, a spokesman for Leap.

The Lafayette-based company leased 5 acres at 34495 E. Quincy Ave. in Watkins to test its new product. It moved in last month.

“It’s not going to be a toothbrush delivery from Amazon. We’re targeting heavy industry as well as remote locations where transport can be difficult or lengthy,” Grabowski said.

Leap was founded in 2022 and has spent the past three years developing its first rocket.

“We won’t be launching from Colorado,” he said. “We will be testing the entire rocket assembled as if it was launching, without releasing it. We will be tying the rocket down to the ground, checking all the systems.”

The land the company leased is mostly empty space, with a concrete pad to test rockets and a small hangar. The company will add a containerized command center for testing.

The land is part of a former 478-acre corporate campus built out by Orica, an Australian mining explosives firm that also performed testing on-site. Orica sold the property last year to three different buyers for a combined $8.8 million, but has leased back around 14 acres from one buyer, according to public records.

Leap’s lease comes as it prepares to launch its first fully operational rocket, called Bullfrog, this winter.

The rocket stands 17 feet tall and almost 2 feet wide and can carry a small payload that will initially consist mostly of research equipment. The rocket is considered suborbital, spending only four minutes in the vacuum of space and falling back to earth with a parachute.

If Bullfrog is successful, the next step would be to achieve full orbital status. That rocket, the 53-foot tall Bighorn, is anticipated to begin testing in late 2027.

Paul Cattin, a broker with Platinum CRE, represented Leap in the yearslong search for testing space.

“We did a lot of work with Leap, what their requirements were, also working with the state and where they would actually allow stuff along those lines, that’s where we found ourselves in this unique pocket where the Orica explosives campus is, and ultimately just east of the space port area,” he said.