Phase one of world’s first commercial spaceport is now 90% completed – in time for first flights in 2013
Flight of fancy? Spaceport America is billed as the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport
Phase one of the world’s first commercial spaceport, which will be the hub for Virgin’s consumer spaceflights, is now 90 per cent complete.
The 1,800-acre Spaceport America site, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, is the home base for Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson’s most ambitious business venture yet.
It already boasts a runway stretching to nearly two miles long, a futuristic styled terminal hanger, and a dome-shaped Space Operations Centre.
The work is now just months away from completion, according to a spaceport spokesman, and is set to be done by the end of the year, well in time for the first expected Virgin Galactic spaceflights in 2013.
Christine Anderson, the newly appointed executive director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, told SPACE.com she was ‘jazzed’ about the progress made so far.
Pioneering: Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo is shown on its maiden flight from the Mojave Air and Spaceport in Mojave, California in this March 22, 2010 file photo
Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipTwo launch system is still in testing and she says it is up to them when they decide it is safe to fly tourists to the edge of space.
At a best guess, she told SPACE.com, flights could begin in the first quarter of 2013.
Construction of phase two has already begun and is set for completion in time for Virgin Galactic’s pioneering flights.
It will include the completion of the Vertical Launch Complex facility, two visitor centres in nearby towns and a further visitor centre on the main spaceport site
Source: Mail Online
