Spaceport America, formerly the Southwest Regional Spaceport, is an FAA-licensed spaceport located on of State Trust Land in the Jornada del Muerto desert basin of the United States, north of Las Cruces, New Mexico and southeast of Truth or Consequences. With Virgin Galactic's launch of the VSS Unity, with three people aboard, on May 22, 2021, New Mexico became the third US state to launch humans into space after California and Florida.
Spaceport America bills itself as "the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport", designed and constructed specifically for commercial users. 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. The first rocket launch at Spaceport America occurred on September 25, 2006.
The current tenants working in the U.S. spaceport are HAPSMobile Aerovironment, UP Aerospace, SpinLaunch, and Virgin Galactic.
Spaceport America was officially declared open on October 18, 2011, the visitor center in Truth or Consequences became fully accessible to the general public on June 24, 2015, and after Virgin Galactic completed the interior buildout, the entire facility was deemed ready for operations in August 2019. Visitors can book private tours of the facility via the website or from the Visit Las Cruces organization or the visitors center in Truth or Consequences.
History Spaceport America began as a potential landing site for reentry capsules and then evolved into a test and operations site for the canceled Lockheed Martin VentureStar project. The first rocket launch at Spaceport America occurred on September 25, 2006.
Inception
The spaceport's initial concept was proposed by Stanford University engineering lecturer and tech startup advisor Dr. Burton Lee in 1990. He wrote the initial business and strategic plans, secured US$1.4 million in seed funding via congressional earmarks with the help of Senator Pete Domenici, and worked with the New Mexico State University Physical Science Laboratory (PSL) to develop local support for the spaceport concept.
In 1992, the Southwest Space Task Force was formed to advance New Mexico's space industry's commercial infrastructure and activity. After several years of study, they focused on a plot of state-owned land, north of Las Cruces, as a location for the spaceport.
In 2003, the task force petitioned then-new Economic Development Cabinet Secretary Rick Homans who then picked up the torch. Homans presented the idea to then-Governor Bill Richardson and negotiated with the X Prize Foundation to locate the X Prize Cup in New Mexico. Following an announcement by Governor Richardson and Sir Richard Branson that the new Virgin Galactic would make New Mexico its world headquarters, the state legislature enacted laws providing for the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport in 2006 (compare SpacePort Canada). The spaceport was subsequently named Spaceport America.
Construction
Construction of the first temporary launch facility at the spaceport site in Sierra County began on April 4, 2006. In early 2007, red tape was still in the process of being cleared and the spaceport itself was still little more than "a by concrete slab." That slab would eventually be part of the launch facility for the spaceport's first tenant UP Aerospace. On April 3, voters in neighboring Doña Ana County approved a spaceport tax that would go into effect upon final approval from Sierra County.
The first images of the then planned spaceport's Hangar Terminal Facility (HTF) were released in early September 2007.
In April 2008, voters in Sierra County approved the plan, releasing over US$40 million in funding for the spaceport. Voters in of Otero County, however, rejected the spaceport tax during general elections in November. In spite of the rejection, Spaceport America had what it needed to move forward and progress toward its completion began.
In December 2008, the New Mexico Spaceport Authority received its launch license for vertical and horizontal launch from the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation. Shortly thereafter, Virgin Galactic signed a 20-year (240-month) lease as the anchor tenant, agreeing to pay US$1 million per year for the first five years in addition to payments on a tiered scale based on the number of launches the company makes.
In December, Gerald Martin Construction Management, from Albuquerque, was chosen to oversee construction. The goal was to have construction complete by December 2010.
The ground-breaking ceremony took place on June 19, 2009, and paid tours of the facilities began in December of the same year.
By February 2010, the in mid-construction budgetary estimate for completion was $198 million.
On October 22, a ceremonial flypass of Spaceport America was made by SpaceShipTwo to celebrate the completion of the runway.
By October 2010, with the runway complete and the terminal building under active construction, the budgetary estimate for completion increased to $212 million. Approximately two-thirds of that were provided by the state and the remainder from "construction bonds backed by a tax approved by voters in Doña Ana and Sierra counties."
The spaceport was officially declared open on October 18, 2011, but the tenant did not move in and begin operations right away. By August 2011, Spaceport America was substantially complete and the cost of the entire project was $209 million.
The interior of the building was the responsibility of tenant Virgin Galactic, and work on the interior began only in 2018. By August 2019, interior work was complete, and the entire facility was deemed ready for operations.
Increased private funding With the inauguration of the administration of Governor Susana Martinez in 2011, the state government took a new approach to increase private investment to complete the spaceport project. In order to oversee the new effort, Governor Martinez appointed an entirely new board of directors for the Spaceport Authority and removed Executive Director Rick Homans.
By 2013, the Spaceport had signed SpaceX as an additional tenant for vertical takeoff and vertical landing flight testing of prototype reusable rockets such as the Falcon 9 Reusable Development Vehicle. The facilities at Spaceport America were never used for Falcon 9 RDV and equipment staged was eventually moved back to Texas.
Delays in operation of the anchor tenant Virgin Galactic faced a series of delays in beginning operations at Spaceport America. The multi-year extension of the test program and the re-designed engine of SpaceShipTwo announced in May 2014 were responsible for much of the delay. In 2014, the spaceport announced that it was seeking additional tenants and hoped to sign another one in the next year.
Budgetary difficulties in operating the spaceport became salient in New Mexico politics. The annual cost of providing fire protection services that were contracted for the mostly unused spaceport was approximately .
The inflight breakup and crash of the first SpaceShipTwo vehicle—VSS Enterprise—in October 2014 raised questions about the future of the spaceport. With further delays to the start of Virgin Galactic commercial operations, at the time projected to at least 2016, the spaceport potentially needed funding from state or local authorities in order to keep the basic fire and security and administrative operation underway. The Spaceport Authority asked the New Mexico legislature in November 2014 for in emergency funds to maintain operations until 2016, the earliest date at which Virgin was expected to be able to begin commercial flight operations.
SpaceX had also been delayed in initiating test flights of F9R Dev2 at the spaceport from when they were originally anticipated. The F9R Dev2 vehicle was canceled in 2015.
In May 2015, budgetary details made public revealed that the substantially unused spaceport had an annual deficit that had been running approximately , with the deficit being made up by state taxpayers. The primary planned revenue in the times of delayed operations by Virgin Galactic and SpaceX, with limited operations by other minor tenants, was local tax revenue, paid by the taxpayers of Sierra and Doña Ana counties.
In May 2019, Virgin Galactic announced that they were ready to relocate all of their spaceflight activities to the spaceport from the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California. Virgin completed the interior fit out work in mid-2019 and the entire facility was deemed ready for operations in August 2019. WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo moved to the Spaceport in February 2020. The operational flights are expected to begin sometime in 2020.Space News In 2019, Infiniti was testing some of its current models at the Spaceport America desert test tracks, such as its Q50 sports sedan and Q60 sports coupe.
On June 25, 2020, Virgin Galactic carried out its second successful glide flight of its spaceship over Spaceport America. The first glide flight took place in May 2020.
In the 2024 analysis of launch site planning, Spaceportopia, the authors describe the potential missed opportunity costs with Spaceport America which has resulted in local citizens and officials being dissatisfied with the use of taxpayer funds.Arrowhead Center and New Mexico State
University, “Economic Impact of Spaceport
America, 2022,” August 2023.
Facility
The site area nets approximately , with the terminal & hangar facility grossing an area of .
The western zone of the facility () houses support and administrative facilities for Virgin Galactic and the New Mexico Spaceport Authority. The central zone contains the double-height hangar () to store White Knight Two and SpaceShipTwo craft. The eastern zone () encompasses the principal operational training area, departure lounge, spacesuit dressing rooms, and celebration areas.
The onsite restaurant and mission control room have direct east views across the apron, runway and landscape beyond.
The spaceport was built with environmental sustainability in mind. Designed to meet the requirements for LEED Gold Certification, it incorporates "Earth Tubes" to cool the building, solar thermal panels, underfloor radiant cooling and heating, and natural ventilation.
A visitor center was planned in downtown Truth or Consequences (the closest town) to provide shuttle bus services to the Spaceport. However, due to delays in spaceport operations and reduction in spaceport authority revenues, the plans were considerably scaled back in January 2014. Rather than the planned facilities, the revised plan in January 2014 had only a capital budget. Rather than the "planned $13 million visitor center at the spaceport [there will be a] $1.5 million hangar" and the Truth or Consequences visitor center budget request was cut to from the original . By May 2015, news media were reporting that the spaceport authority "spent so much money with a company to design the visitors’ experience that it had no money left over to actually build the facilities for it."
The spaceport is located under FAA Special Use Airspace Restricted Areas 5111A and 5111B. When both these areas are active the airspace is restricted from surface to 'unlimited'.
Awards Since its completion in 2014 by Foster+Partners and URS Corporation team, the facility has a LEED-Gold Terminal Hangar facility and has won several awards for its architectural design.
2014 Jeff Harner Award for Contemporary Architecture Award 2014 American Institute of Architects, Western Mountain Region Merit Award American Institute of Architects, Albuquerque Chapter, Merit Award American Institute of Architects, 2013 Design Awards Program, New Mexico Student Jury, UNM School of Architecture + Planning