How Did I Miss This News?

Leasburg Dam State Park

March 3, 2020

Spaceport America is an FAA-licensed spaceport located on 18,000 acres of State Trust Land in the Jomada del Muerto desert basin in New Mexico directly west and adjacent to U.S. Army's White Sands Missile Range, 45 miles north of Las Cruses.

Spaceport America is "the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport", designed and constructed specifically for commercial users that had not previously been an airport or federal infrastructure of any kind. The site is built to accommodate both vertical and horizontal launch aerospace vehicles, as well as an array of non-aerospace events and commercial activities.

Spaceport America is owned and operated by the State of New Mexico, via a state agency, the New Mexico Spaceport Authority.

Current tenants of the spaceport include Virgin Galactic, TMD Defense and Space, White Sands Research and Developers and SpinLaunch while Boeing, HyperSciences, UP Aerospace, and Armadillo Aerospace and its successor, Exos Aerospace, have all operated from the spaceport.

The facility was officially declared open in October 2011, the visitor center in Truth or Consequence became fully accessible to the general public in June 2015 and Virgin Galactic completed the interior fit out work and the entire facility was deemed ready for operations in August 2019.

Wow. I had no idea. Shouldn’t it have been built in Roswell? 👽