In 2009, U.S. commercial space transportation and the services and industries it enables accounted for more than $208 billion in economic activity.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is awarding grants to spaceport projects in Virginia, California and New Mexico as part of a program first announced in the fall of 2010. The taxpayer funded, spacepork matching grants will help develop the commercial space industry.
The United States’ space program has three sectors – civil, military and commercial. The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation is responsible for licensing, regulating and promoting the emerging commercial-sector space industry.
The FAA has also issued licenses for more than 200 launches, licensed eight FAA-approved launch sites known as spaceports, and helped ensure that no loss of life or serious injury has been associated with these efforts.
Today’s grants go specifically to three Spaceport projects:
- $125,000 to the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport to improve security and remote monitoring;
- $125,000 to the East Kern Airport District’s Mojave Air and Space Port in California for a Supplemental Environmental Assessment; and
- $249,378 to the New Mexico Space Port Authority’s Spaceport America to construct a mobile structure to prepare larger rockets before launch.
In 2009, U.S. commercial space transportation and the services and industries it enables accounted for more than $208 billion in economic activity. More than one million people were employed as a result.
