Southern California’s space economy is being revitalized with a new wave of startups pushing technological boundaries.

A report by the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. shows the county’s aerospace and defense industries added 11,000 jobs between 2022 and 2024. The jobs had an average wage of $141,110 — more than twice the county average.

In a giant Long Beach warehouse near where Boeing used to build the C-17 cargo jet, Vast is fabricating what could be the first commercial space station to circle Earth.

Just up the road in El Segundo, Varda Space Industries has grown molecular crystals in microgravity with few impurities for pharmaceuticals that one day could be injected in cancer patients.

And a little south in Seal Beach, a scrappy company called AstroForge aims to land a sate

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