The Federal Aviation Administration’s Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

(FAA/AST) licenses and regulates U.S. commercial space launch and reentry activity, as well as the 

operation of non-federal launch and reentry sites, as authorized by Executive Order 12465 and Title 49

United States Code, Subtitle IX, Chapter 701 (formerly the Commercial Space Launch Act). FAA/AST’s 

mission is to ensure public health and safety and the safety of property while protecting the national security

and foreign policy interests of the United States during commercial launch and reentry operations. In addition, FAA/AST is directed to encourage, facilitate, and promote commercial space launches and reentries.

Additional information concerning commercial space transportation can be found on FAA/AST’s web site 

at http://ast.faa.gov.

2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts About FAA/AST

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

About the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation
About FAA/AST 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

The Publication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Expendable Launch Vehicle Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Reusable Launch Vehicle Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Enabling Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

Spaceports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

2002 Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Expendable Launch Vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Current ELV Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Athena - Lockheed Martin Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Atlas Family - Lockheed Martin Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Delta Family - The Boeing Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Minotaur - Orbital Sciences Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Pegasus - Orbital Sciences Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Taurus - Orbital Sciences Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Titan Family - Lockheed Martin Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Zenit 3SL - The Sea Launch Company, LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

ELV Development Efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

AirLaunch – The Boeing Company/ATK Thiokol Propulsion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

Aquarius - Space Systems/Loral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

Eagle S-Series - E’Prime Aerospace Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Falcon - Space Exploration Technologies Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

LV-1 - Rocket Propulsion Engineering Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

Scorpius Family - Microcosm, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

SLC-1 - Space Launch Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

Sounding Rockets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Black Brant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Oriole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Terrier-Orion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

Reusable Launch Vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Government RLV Development Efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Space Shuttle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Orbital Space Plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

Next Generation Launch Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

RASCAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

Commercial RLV Development Efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

Astroliner – Kelly Space and Technology, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

Black Armadillo - Armadillo Aerospace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

K-1 – Kistler Aerospace Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

Pathfinder – Pioneer Rocketplane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

SA-1 – SPACE ACCESS®, LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Xerus - XCOR Aerospace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

X PRIZE® Contenders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

More Commercial RLV Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Enabling Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

Air-Breathing Engines - NASA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

Hybrid Rocket Motors - SpaceDev, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

Hypersonic Engine Design - NASA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

Linear Aerospike Engine - Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Contents

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation i

Table of Contents
Liquid Engines - Interorbital Systems Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Liquid Engines - Microcosm, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Liquid Engines - Rocket Propulsion Engineering Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Liquid Engines - Space Exploration Technologies Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Liquid Engines - XCOR Aerospace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Liquid Engines and Thrusters - NASA/SLI Contractors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Propellant Production - Andrews Space & Technology, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

RLV Technologies/X-37 and X-40A - NASA/The Boeing Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

Spaceports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35

Federal Spaceports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

Cape Canaveral Spaceport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

Edwards Air Force Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38

Vandenberg Air Force Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38

Wallops Flight Facility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39

White Sands Missile Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40

Non-federal Spaceports with FAA/AST Licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41

California Spaceport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41

Kodiak Launch Complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42

Spaceport Operated by Florida Space Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43

Virginia Space Flight Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44

Proposed Non-federal Spaceports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45

Gulf Coast Regional Spaceport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45

Mojave Airport Civilian Flight Test Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46

Montana Spaceport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46

Nevada Test Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

Oklahoma Spaceport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

South Dakota Spaceport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

South Texas Spaceport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48

Southwest Regional Spaceport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48

Spaceport Alabama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

Spaceport Washington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

Utah Spaceport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

West Texas Spaceport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

Wisconsin Spaceport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53

Contents 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

ii Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation
2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Acronyms

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation iii

AADC - Alaska Aerospace Development

Corporation

ACES - Air Collection and Enrichment System 

AFB - Air Force Base

AST - Associate Administrator for Commercial

Space Transportation

CCAFS - Cape Canaveral Air Force Station

COBRA - Co-optimized Booster for Reusable

Applications

DARPA - Defense Advanced Research Projects

Agency

DoD - U.S. Department of Defense

EELV - Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle

ELI - Elliptical Orbit

ELV - Expendable Launch Vehicle

FAA - Federal Aviation Administration 

FSA - Florida Space Authority

GEO - Geosynchronous Earth Orbit

GTO - Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit

ICBM - Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile

ISS - International Space Station

ISTAR - Integrated System Test of an Air-breathing

Rocket

ISTP - Integrated Space Transportation Plan

KSC - Kennedy Space Center

LC - Launch Complex

LEO - Low Earth Orbit

LOX - Liquid Oxygen

MEO - Medium Earth Orbit

MIPCC - Mass-Injected Pre-Compressor Cooling

NASA - National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

NCSS - National Coalition of Spaceport States

NGSO - Non-Geosynchronous Orbit

OSIDA - Oklahoma Space Industry Development

Authority

RASCAL - Responsive Access, Small Cargo, and

Affordable Launch

RLV - Reusable Launch Vehicle

SBIR - Small Business Innovative Research

SLC - Space Launch Complex

SLI - Space Launch Initiative

SSI - Spaceport Systems International

SSME - Space Shuttle Main Engine

SSO - Sun-Synchronous Orbit

SSTO - Single-Stage-to-Orbit

TSTO - Two-Stage-to-Orbit

VAFB - Vandenberg Air Force Base

VCSFA - Virginia Commercial Space Flight

Authority

VSFC - Virginia Space Flight Center

List of Acronyms
Acronyms 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

iv Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation
The Publication

This report, 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts: Vehicles,

Technologies, and Spaceports, reviews the major

events relating to U.S. commercial space transportation in the past year and showcases current and

planned U.S. commercial and commercially-oriented

activities.

The Federal Aviation Administration Associate Administrator for Commercial Space

Transportation (FAA/AST) first published the

report in 1998 with an exclusive focus on reusable

launch vehicles (RLV). The current edition addresses not only RLVs but also expendable launch vehicles (ELV), propulsion technologies, and launch

and reentry sites—commonly referred to as “spaceports”—to provide a complete picture of the U.S.

commercial space transportation industry.

This report objectively reviews space transportation programs and projects as well as launch and

reentry sites that will impact and support the development of commercial space activities and applications.

The private sector plays a prominent role in the 

management, development, and funding of these

activities; the federal government and several state

governments substantially contribute to or provide

leadership for many of the technologies and facilities

described herein as well. With the exception of a few

X PRIZE® vehicle concepts, all activities and developments described in this report are being led by

U.S. entities.

Expendable Launch Vehicle Industry

Although commercial launch activity

remained lower than in recent past years, the year

2002 was a milestone for the U.S. ELV industry.

The two Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles

(EELV)—the Boeing Company’s Delta 4 and

Lockheed Martin Corporation’s Atlas 5—made their

inaugural flights in 2002, each carrying satellites

owned by the French company Eutelsat. These boosters represent a new generation of medium- and

heavy-lift launchers for both commercial and government payloads. Both launcher companies intend to

phase out the older Atlas and Delta variants in the

upcoming years as the EELV boosters enter service

and as the launch market warrants. 

While the EELV program supports the larger

end of the launch market, there are a number of commercial ELVs under development to serve smaller

payloads. These ELVs are primarily being developed

by small entrepreneurial companies focusing on specific market niches, such as satellites that currently

fly as secondary payloads on larger boosters. These

companies are exploring various technologies,

including new propellants and pressure-fed engines,

which have the potential to reduce the cost of their

vehicles. The ability to reduce launch costs and thus

stimulate demand will be critical to the success of

these ELVs given the current size of the market for

small payloads. One company, the Space Exploration

Technologies Corporation, or Space X, intends to

make the first launch of its Falcon ELV as early as

the end of 2003. Indeed, there should be a number of

key developments for these ELVs during the year as

they pursue private investment and construct and test

components needed for future launches.

Reusable Launch Vehicle Industry

The Space Shuttle remains the first and only

currently operational, partially reusable launch vehicle.1 Development of new RLVs nonetheless remains

of great interest to many national governments and

private companies. The appeal of RLVs rests in their

ability not only to launch from but also to return to

Earth for reuse—a quality desirable for various types

of missions, including human trips to and from

space. Many also have considered RLV development

attractive because the construction cost of an RLV

could be amortized over multiple launches, thus

potentially reducing the cost of access to space for

government and commercial users. 

As government and commercial RLV developers alike have come to realize in recent years, RLV

development is an extremely challenging endeavor,

not only technologically and operationally but also

in terms of performance requirements and market

development and costs. Government RLV development programs, which often both depend on and

guide private RLV development, have had no short2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Introduction

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 1

Introduction
age of these difficulties. Throughout the 1980s and

1990s, National Aeronautics and Space Administration

(NASA) and Department of Defense (DoD) efforts

to develop experimental RLVs to improve reliability,

reduce operating costs, and demonstrate routine

operations were dashed due to cost overruns, technical setbacks, and requirement shifts. As a result, no

fully operational vehicle ever emerged. In 1999,

NASA sought to meet its challenges with the

Integrated Space Trans-portation Plan (ISTP), an

investment strategy for its space transportation

needs comprising a program of Space Shuttle

upgrades; the Space Launch Initiative (SLI), a $4.8-

billion technology development program that would

support NASA in making a decision on whether or

not to build a new RLV to replace the Shuttle; and a

program to develop the technologies for third- and

fourth-generation RLVs. 

Once again, limited funds and competing 

performance requirements have forced NASA to

reevaluate its RLV development efforts. In 2002

NASA proposed in an amendment to its fiscal year

2003 budget a new ISTP to better coordinate its

space transportation efforts with its International

Space Station (ISS) and science and research needs.

The proposed ISTP continues to support the Space

Shuttle but restructures SLI to accommodate the

near-term development of an ISS crew transfer

vehicle called the Orbital Space Plane and the continued support of future generations of launch technology. As a result of a recent NASA-Air Force

joint study, the two agencies may work together to

develop RLVs that meet mutual requirements. 

Commercial RLV developers have met with

similar technological, cost, market and performance

requirements challenges many times in recent years.

In the 1990s numerous private RLV development

companies emerged, determined to build RLVs to

meet the high projected launch demand fueled primarily by non-geosynchronous orbit (NGSO) satellite telecommunications constellations, which were

to deploy large numbers of satellites and require

many replacements and follow-on satellites. The

failure of many of the constellation concepts to

materialize curbed the market RLV developers

anticipated while also making it difficult for developers to obtain capital from private investors to turn

their concepts into reality. Today’s low launch

demand, the abundance of launch vehicles on the

world market, and the general state of the economy

have also contributed to the difficulties RLV developers have experienced in finding financial backers

and solid markets. The impact of pending changes

to NASA’s SLI on RLV developers who pursued

SLI contracts is uncertain.

Despite the challenges, the commercial RLV

industry remained resilient in 2002. Several commercial RLV companies remain committed to the goal 

of developing and operating their vehicles and are

aggressively pursuing private investment. Many have

abandoned NGSO payloads as their target market in

favor of human space travel, which now seems to 

be a more promising enterprise. In addition, twenty

organizations are vying for the X PRIZE®, several of

which entered contention in 2002. At least one contender has begun testing its vehicle concepts.

Finally, the year 2002 underscored the fact

that “RLV” may prove to be an ambiguous term 

as “hybrid” vehicles emerge. In 2002 the Defense

Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

awarded contracts to six companies to develop

designs for its Responsive Access, Small Cargo,

and Affordable Launch (RASCAL) program, which

may yield a vehicle that can meet the demand for

launch on short notice. The contending designs

combine reusable and expendable stages.

Enabling Technologies

There are a number of efforts underway to

develop new propulsion technologies for launch

vehicles, including ELVs and RLVs. These efforts

include government-funded research projects as well

as engines and motors being developed by companies

for their own launch vehicles and for sale to other

companies. NASA’s SLI is funding several companies to conduct propulsion work. There is a trend of

development of new liquid-propellant engines that

use room-temperature propellants instead of cryogens

or pressure-fed systems instead of turbopumps. These

engines are considerably less complex, and potentially less expensive, than engines that use turbopumps and cryogenic propellants.

Spaceports

Launch and reentry sites—often referred to as

“spaceports”—may house launch pads and runways

as well as the infrastructure, equipment, and fuels

Introduction 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

2 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation
needed to process launch vehicles and their payloads

prior to launch. While U.S. military and civil government agencies were the original and still are the 

primary developers and users of launch facilities,

commercial launch activity now comprises a substantial portion of federal launch site operations. One

of the recent major developments at federal launch

sites that will benefit both commercial and government payload customers was the construction of new

launch infrastructure at the two major federal sites—

Cape Canaveral Spaceport and Vandenberg Air Force

Base (VAFB)—to support the Delta and Atlas

EELVs. These facilities were developed with commercial, federal, and state government funds.

The commercial dimension of U.S. space

activity is evident not only in the numbers of commercially-procured launches but also in the list of

non-federal launch sites supplementing federally

operated sites. FAA/AST has licensed the operations

of spaceports in four different U.S. states, and these

sites are currently available to serve commercial as

well as government payload owners. With the launch

market rather low, however, these spaceport operators

now are also seeking out new opportunities such as

payload processing and space research facility development. Organizations in several states nonetheless

see the potential of spaceports to accommodate

future RLVs and are actively working to turn their

spaceport visions into reality. 

2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Introduction

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 3
Introduction 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

4 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation
January 25: Aerojet delivered to NASA the deorbit

propulsion stage for the X-38, a prototype of a proposed crew return vehicle for the International

Space Station (ISS).

February 6: Boeing Phantom Works completed the

construction of the wings for the X-37, an experimental reusable launch vehicle technology demonstrator,

and shipped them to the X-37 assembly facility in

Palmdale, California.

February 11: A Boeing Delta 2 7920 launched five

replacement spacecraft for Iridium Satellite LLC

from Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB).

February 21: A Lockheed Martin Atlas 3B launched

the EchoStar 7 direct television broadcasting satellite

for EchoStar from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station

(CCAFS). The launch was the first for the Atlas 3B.

March 11: Space Adventures, Ltd., and US Airways

announced a partnership to offer the airline’s frequent flyer club members the opportunity to redeem

or earn miles for a variety of space-related activities.

The agreement marked the first time an airline has

offered to apply or award mileage for space travel. 

March 23: The Oklahoma Space Industry

Development Authority (OSIDA) officially opened

the Oklahoma Spaceport at Burns Flat, Oklahoma,

with the ceremonial launch of high-altitude balloons.

March 25: InterOrbital Systems signed up its first

passenger, Wally Funk, for an orbital ride on its

Neptune Spaceliner, currently in development. 

Ms. Funk trained with the Mercury 7 astronauts but

never flew in space. The cost of her ticket is estimated to be $2 million.

March 28: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center

began hot-fire tests of a liquid-oxygen/liquid-hydrogen reaction control engine built by TRW as part of

the Space Launch Initiative (SLI).

April 10: Aerojet validated the design for a tri-fluid

propellant injector for a hydrogen peroxide engine

for use on the Advanced Reusable Rocket Engine,

an engine Aerojet is designing for the U.S. Air

Force’s Space Maneuver Vehicle.

April 19: The Defense Advanced Research Projects

Agency (DARPA) awarded six Phase 1 contracts for

its Responsive Access, Small Cargo, and Affordable

Launch (RASCAL) air-launch program. Winners were

Coleman Research Corporation; Northrop Grumman

Corporation; Pioneer Rocketplane Corporation; Space

Launch Corporation; Space Access, LLC; and Delta

Velocity.

April 29: NASA announced its cancellation of the

X-38 program to allow the space agency to focus its

resources on other aspects of the ISS program.

April 30: The SLI program completed its first milestone review, the Initial Architecture Technology

Review, narrowing the number of proposed reusable

launch vehicle (RLV) architectures to 15.

May 20: The Co-optimized Booster for Reusable

Applications (COBRA), a liquid-oxygen liquidhydrogen engine developed by Pratt & Whitney and

Aerojet for SLI, passed its preliminary design review.

May 21: NASA and the U.S. Air Force announced

that they agreed with the conclusions of a 120-day

study completed in February by the two organizations, which called for continued study of a jointlydeveloped RLV.

May 22: The Federal Aviation Administration/

Associate Administrator for Commercial Space

Transportation (FAA/AST) renewed the license for

the Florida Space Authority to conduct spaceport

operations for another five years.

June 5: Boeing announced plans to develop the

RS-84, a liquid-oxygen and kerosene engine capable of producing 4.68 million newtons (1.05 million

pounds force) of thrust, for SLI.

June 15: A Sea Launch Zenit 3SL launched the

Galaxy 3C communications spacecraft from a

mobile platform on the Equator in the Pacific Ocean.

July 22: XCOR Aerospace and Space Adventures, Ltd.,

announced plans to develop Xerus, a reusable suborbital launch vehicle capable of carrying a pilot and one

passenger to an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles).

The vehicle will be built by XCOR and marketed for

commercial space tourism flights by Space Adventures.

2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts 2002 Highlights

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 5

2002 Highlights
July 30: A Terrier-Orion Mk 70 sounding rocket

launched the Hyshot hypersonic flight experiment

payload from Woomera Test Range, Australia. The

flight marked the first successful flight test of a

scramjet, a supersonic combustion air-breathing

engine.

August 21: A Lockheed Martin Atlas 5 401

launched the Hot Bird 6 communications spacecraft

for Eutelsat from CCAFS. The launch was the first

for the Atlas 5, a vehicle developed as part of the

Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program.

August 22: The Pecos County/West Texas Spaceport

Development Corporation signed a contract with JP

Aerospace for use of the Las Escaleras a las Estrellas

(“Stairway to the Stars”) spaceport. JP Aerospace

plans to use the facility to loft balloons carrying rockets that will launch microsatellite payloads under a

contract the company has with the Air Force.

August 28: Kennedy Space Center, CCAFS, and

Florida Space Authority officials released a 50-year

master plan for the development of the Cape

Canaveral Spaceport.

September 5: The U.S. Army and the State of New

Mexico signed a Memorandum of Agreement permitting the development of a commercial spaceport

at White Sands Missile Range.

September 18: A Lockheed Martin Atlas 2AS

launched the Hispasat 1D communications satellite

from CCAFS.

September 28: Armadillo Aerospace conducted the

first piloted, low-level flight test of its vertical-takeoff/vertical-landing technology testbed vehicle.

September 30: NASA terminated SLI funding for

the COBRA engine, electing to focus on other

engine development programs.

October 5: The Pecos County/West Texas

Spaceport had its first launch: a 4.3-meter (14-foot)

rocket built by JP Aerospace that reached an altitude of 6,100 meters (20,000 feet) in 34 seconds. 

October 8: NASA and the Air Force signed a 

memorandum of agreement concerning RLV development, dividing responsibilities and increasing

cooperation between NASA’s SLI and the Air

Force’s National Aerospace Initiative.

October 21: NASA announced the postponement

of the SLI System Requirements Review, originally

scheduled for November. No future date was

announced.

November 13: NASA released a revised version

its Integrated Space Transportation Plan (ISTP).

The new ISTP de-emphasizes the development of 

a second-generation RLV in favor of general RLV

technology research. The ISTP also includes a new

Orbital Space Plane to be launched atop an expendable launch vehicle to ferry crews to the ISS, with

first flight planned for 2010. The Administration

submitted to Congress a request to amend NASA’s

FY 2003 budget to transfer some SLI funding to the

Space Shuttle and Orbital Space Plane programs.

November 20: A Boeing Delta 4 Medium-Plus (4,2)

launched the Eutelsat W5 communications satellite

from CCAFS. The launch was the first for the Delta 4,

developed as part of the EELV program.

November 20: NASA awarded Boeing Phantom

Works a $301 million contract to complete the X-37.

The contract covers a series of atmospheric landing

tests in mid-2004 and an orbital test flight in mid2006. NASA also awarded Lockheed Martin a 

$53 million contract to develop a reusable system 

to test technologies in a launch pad abort situation.

December 19: FAA/AST renewed the license for

the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority

(VCSFA) to operate the Virginia Space Flight

Center (VSFC) spaceport for another five years.

2002 Highlights 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

6 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation
2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Expendable Launch Vehicles

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 7

This survey of U.S. expendable launch vehicles (ELV)

is divided into three sections. The first section reviews

the ELVs currently available to serve a wide range of

commercial and government payloads. The second

section reviews a number of proposed commercial

ELVs under study or development that will primarily

serve small commercial payloads at prices that are

potentially much lower than available today. The

final section reviews sounding rockets that are manufactured and operated by U.S. companies today.

Current ELV Systems

The ELV systems available in the United States

today are summarized in Table 1.2 Three ELVs—

Minotaur, Titan 2, and Titan 4B—are restricted to

government payloads.3 The remaining six—Athena,

the Atlas variants, the Delta variants, Pegasus, Taurus,

and Zenit 3SL (the Sea Launch vehicle)—are available for commercial use; all but the Zenit 3SL can

also carry U.S. government payloads. The two newest

members of the U.S. launcher stable, the Atlas 5 and

Delta 4 Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELV),

made their debuts in 2002. The other Atlas and Delta

boosters will be gradually phased out in favor of the

EELV variants as market conditions warrant. 

Athena - Lockheed Martin Corporation

The Athena family of launch vehicles was created by Lockheed Martin to serve the small satellite

market. Lockheed started development of what was

first known as the Lockheed Launch Vehicle in 1993;

the vehicle became the Lockheed Martin Launch

Vehicle after Lockheed’s merger with Martin Marietta

in 1995 and was renamed the Athena in 1997. The

Athena vehicles use Castor 120 solid-propellant

motors: the Athena 1 uses a single Castor 120 as its

first stage, while the larger Athena 2 uses Castor 120

motors for its first and second stages for enhanced

payload performance. Both vehicles also use either

one solid and one liquid or two solid and two liquid

propellant upper stages.4

Athena launches have taken place from

Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB), California; Cape

Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), Florida; and

the Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska. The latest

Athena launch took place on September 29, 2001,

when an Athena 1 launched from Kodiak placed the

Starshine 3, Sapphire, PICOSat, and PCSat spacecraft into polar orbit. Although no future launches

have been manifested, Athena launch capability

continues to be available on the market.

Atlas Family - Lockheed Martin Corporation

The Atlas launch vehicle family traces its roots

to the development of the Atlas inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) in the 1950s. The Atlas family

is in a stage of transition as older versions of the

vehicle, the Atlas 2A and Atlas 2AS, as well as the

Atlas 3A and Atlas 3B, gradually will be retired to

make way for the Atlas 5 EELV. For the next few

years, all three Atlas variants will be in service to

launch commercial and government payloads.

Atlas 2

The Atlas 2A and Atlas 2AS are direct

descendants of the original Atlas, incorporating its

unique stage-and-a-half design. This design uses

two powerful “booster” engines and one less powerful, but longer-duration “sustainer” engine on the

vehicle’s first stage, as well as a Centaur upper stage.

The Atlas 2A and 2AS are identical except for the

four strap-on Castor 4A solid rocket motors attached

to the first stage of the Atlas 2AS to improve its

payload performance. The last Atlas 2A flight took

place on December 4, 2002, with the launch of the

National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s

(NASA) Tracking and Data Relay Satellite J. With

three launches planned for 2003, the Atlas 2AS will

remain in service until at least 2004.

Atlas 3

The Atlas 3A and Atlas 3B represent a transition between the older Atlas vehicles and the Atlas

5 EELV. The Atlas 3 abandons the stage-and-a-half

design of the older Atlases for a single RD-180 main

engine developed by the Russian company NPO

Energomash and marketed under a joint RussianAmerican partnership with Pratt & Whitney. The

RD-180 is a derivative of the RD-170 used by the

now-defunct Russian Energia heavy-lift launch

vehicle. Because the RD-180 has 70-percent component commonality with the proven RD-170, it

was less risky to develop than a totally new design

while giving better performance than available U.S.-

built engines. The Atlas 3A, introduced in 2000, uses

Expendable Launch Vehicles
Vehicle Athena Minotaur Pegasus Taurus Delta 2 Titan 2

Company Lockheed Martin Orbital Sciences Orbital Sciences Orbital Sciences Boeing Lockheed 

Martin

First Launch 1995 2000 1990 1994 1990 1988*

3 (Athena 1)

4 (Athena 2)

820 kg (1,805 

lbs.) (Athena 1)

2,050 kg (4,520 

lbs.) (Athena 2)

545 kg (1,200 

lbs.) (Athena 1)

1,575 kg (3,470 

lbs.) (Athena 2)

* First launch of refurbished Titan 2 ICBM. Titan 2 was also used for Gemini program launches, 1964-1966.

** Wallops Flight Facility.

5,125 kg

(11,300 lbs.) N/A

1,870 kg

(4,120 lbs.) N/A

3,895 kg

(8,590 lbs.)

VAFB VAFB

1,905 kg

(4,200 lbs.)

CCAFS, VAFB

Payload

Performance

(GTO)

N/A N/A N/A

N/A

Payload

Performance

(LEO polar)

CCAFS, VAFB, 

Kodiak Launch Sites

340 kg (750 lbs.) 

(SSO) 330 kg (730 lbs.) 1,070 kg (2,360 lbs.)

CCAFS, WFF,** 

VAFB, EAFB, 

Kwajalein, Canary 

VAFB

N/A

Stages 4 3

N/A 440 kg (975 lbs.)

Payload

Performance

(LEO)

Small Medium

4 3 2

a single-engine Centaur upper stage. The Atlas 3B,

first launched on February 21, 2002, uses a stretched

Centaur upper stage with one or two engines. The

Atlas 3 will be phased out in favor of the Atlas 5 by

mid-decade. One Atlas 3A and two Atlas 3B launches

are scheduled for 2003.

Atlas 5

The Atlas 5 family of launch vehicles, developed under the EELV program, is based on a common first stage design known as the Common Core

BoosterTM that uses the NPO Energomash RD-180

engine introduced on the Atlas 3. In order to meet

national security requirements, Pratt & Whitney was

selected to build this engine in the United States for

government uses of the Atlas 5. Domestic production has not begun, however, and the initial flights

of government payloads on Atlas 5 vehicles will use

Russian-built engines under a waiver. The stretched

version of the Centaur upper stage introduced on the

Atlas 3B is also used on the Atlas 5, in both singleand dual-engine versions. The first Atlas 5 launch

took place on August 21, 2002, when an Atlas 5 401

vehicle successfully launched the Eutelsat Hot Bird 6

spacecraft from CCAFS.

Expendable Launch Vehicles 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

8 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Table 1: Currently Available Expendable Launch Vehicles
Vehicle Delta 3 Delta 4 Atlas 2 Atlas 3 Atlas 5 Delta 4 

Heavy Titan 4B Zenit 3SL

Company Boeing Boeing Lockheed 

Martin

Lockheed 

Martin

Lockheed 

Martin Boeing Lockheed Martin Sea Launch

First Launch 1998 2002 1990 2000 2002 2003 1997 1999

8,120 kg 

(17,905 lbs.) 

(Delta 4 M)

7,315 kg 

(16,130 lbs.) 

(Atlas 2A)

8,640 kg 

(19,050 lbs.) 

(Atlas 3A)

10,300 kg 

(22,711 lbs.) 

(Atlas 5 502)

11,475 kg 

(25,300 lbs.) 

(Delta 4 M+ 

(5,4))

8,620 kg 

(19,000 lbs.) 

(Atlas 2AS)

10,720 kg 

(23,630 lbs.) 

(Atlas 3B)

20,520 kg 

(45,250 lbs.) 

(Atlas 5 552)

6,870 kg 

(15,150 lbs.) 

(Delta 4 M)

6,190 kg 

(13,650 lbs.) 

(Atlas 2A)

10,400 kg 

(22,930 lbs.) 

(Delta 4 M+ 

(5,4))

7,210 kg 

(15,900 lbs.) 

(Atlas 2AS)

4,210 kg 

(9,285 lbs.) 

(Delta 4 M)

3,065 kg 

(6,760 lbs.) 

(Atlas 2A)

4,035 kg 

(8,900 lbs.) 

(Atlas 3A)

3,970 kg 

(8,750 lbs.) 

(Atlas 5 501)

6,565 kg 

(14,480 lbs.) 

(Delta 4 M+ 

(5,4))

3,720 kg 

(8,200 lbs.) 

(Atlas 2AS)

4,475 kg 

(9,870 lbs.) 

(Atlas 3B)

8,670 kg 

(19,120 lbs.) 

(Atlas 5 551)

3

Intermediate

Stages 2 2 2

Heavy

2 2 2

N/A

Payload

Performance

(GTO)

3,810 kg 

(8,400 lbs.)

5,760 kg 

(12,700 

lbs.) (GEO)

Pacific 

Ocean CCAFS, VAFB

Payload

Performance

(LEO)

Payload

Performance

(LEO polar)

6,000 kg 

(13,230 lbs.)

Launch Sites

N/A 8,290 kg 

(18,280 lbs.)

CCAFS CCAFS, VAFB CCAFS

N/A N/A

CCAFS, VAFB CCAFS, VAFB

20,800 kg 

(45,865 lbs.)

13,130 kg 

(28,950 lbs.)

N/A

2

21,680 kg 

(47,800 

lbs.)

CCAFS

23,040 kg 

(50,800 lbs.)

17,600 kg 

(38,800 

lbs.)

The Atlas 5 also marks a significant departure

in launch preparations compared to previous Atlas

versions. The Atlas 5 is prepared for launch in a

vertical configuration in an assembly building near

the pad. Hours before launch, it is moved out to the

pad fully prepared for launch. 

The Atlas 5 is available in the 400 and 500

series and will accommodate 4-meter (13.1 foot)

and 5-meter (16.4-foot) fairings and up to five strapon solid rocket motors. The Atlas 400 series can

place payloads between 4,950 and 7,640 kilograms

(10,910 and 16,843 pounds) into geosynchronous

transfer orbit (GTO), while the Atlas 500 series can

place payloads between 3,970 and 8,670 kilograms

(8,750 and 19,120 pounds) into GTO. Lockheed

Martin is designing but has chosen not to produce a

heavy version of the Atlas 5 at this time. Unlike the

Delta 4, the Atlas 5 will only be launched from

CCAFS. Two commercial Atlas 5 launches are currently scheduled for 2003.5

Delta Family - The Boeing Company

The Delta family of launch vehicles can trace

its heritage to the Thor missile program of the

2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Expendable Launch Vehicles

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 9
1950s. Like the Atlas program, the Delta family is

undergoing a transition prompted by the introduction of the Delta 4 vehicles developed under the

EELV program. The older Delta 2 and Delta 3 vehicles will eventually be phased out, although the

Delta 2 is likely to remain in service through most

of this decade.

Delta 2

The Delta 2 uses a liquid-oxygen (LOX)-

kerosene first stage and a nitrogen tetroxide-Aerozine

second stage, along with an optional solid-propellant

upper stage. The Delta 2 can also use between three

and nine strap-on solid rocket motors, depending on

the performance required. A “heavy” version of the

Delta 2, which uses the larger graphite epoxy motors

46 strap-on boosters developed for the Delta 3, will

enter service in early 2003 with the launch of NASA’s

Space Infrared Telescope Facility spacecraft. Although

the Delta 2’s small payload capacity has limited its

usefulness for commercial GTO payloads, it is expected to remain in service through most of the decade,

primarily launching military and civil government

payloads. Up to 12 government Delta 2 launches are

planned for 2003.6

Delta 3

The Delta 3 was developed both to serve larger payloads and to be a transition towards the 

Delta 4 EELV boosters. The Delta 3 uses the same

first-stage engine as the Delta 2 but incorporates

nine graphite epoxy motors 46 solid rocket motors

as well as a new cryogenic upper stage with an

engine similar to the one used on the Centaur upper

stage. After two unsuccessful inaugural launch

attempts in 1998 and 1999, the Delta 3 successfully

launched a test payload in August 2000; no Delta 3

launches have taken place since then. Boeing plans

to phase out the Delta 3 as the Delta 4 becomes

operational.7

Delta 4

The Delta 4 family of launch vehicles has a

common booster core first stage that uses the first

new large liquid rocket engine developed in the

United States since the Space Shuttle Main Engine

(SSME), which was designed in the 1970s. This

engine, the Rocketdyne RS-68, is based on the J-2

engine used on the second stage of the Saturn 5

launch vehicle and technology from the SSME. It

is, however, both larger and simpler than the SSME.

The RS-68 can be supplemented by two to four

solid-fuel, graphite-epoxy motors, two types of

upper stages, and three payload fairings, depending

on customer needs. It will be launched from both

VAFB and CCAFS. The first Delta 4 launch took

place on November 20, 2002, successfully lofting

the Eutelsat W5 spacecraft from CCAFS. 

Boeing offers five different versions of the

Delta 4 to address a broad range of payload mass

classes. These include four medium versions, each

with one common booster core, and one heavy-lift

version that will use three parallel common booster

core stages. Three of these versions, the Delta 4

Medium-Plus vehicles, will be optimized for commercial use. The Medium and Heavy versions are

largely intended for government use. Payload

capacities to low Earth orbit (LEO) range from

8,120 kilograms (17,905 pounds) for the Medium 

to 23,040 kilograms (50,800 pounds) for the Heavy;

GTO capacities range from 4,210 to 13,130 kilograms (9,285 to 28,950 pounds). Boeing plans to

replace the Delta 3 with the Delta 4 over the next

few years; subsequently, Boeing expects to phase

out the Delta 2. Up to eight Delta 4 launches are

scheduled for 2003, including the first flight of the

Heavy variant.

A distinctive design feature of the Delta 4 is

its use of horizontal integration. The vehicle will be

assembled, tested, and prepared for launch horizontally, away from the launch pad. When integration

is complete, the vehicle will be moved to the pad,

raised, and launched in a relatively short period of

time. In addition to making the launch vehicle easier to work on by keeping it closer to the ground,

this integration method also greatly reduces time

spent occupying the launch pad. Boeing expects to

reduce pad time from Delta 2’s 24 days to a period

of about a week for the Delta 4. Since the availability of launch pads is one of the factors limiting

launch rates, Boeing’s integration process contributes to the economic advantages that are a major

part of the EELV program’s goals.8

Minotaur - Orbital Sciences Corporation

The Orbital/Suborbital Program Space Launch

Vehicle, also known as Minotaur, was developed by

Orbital Sciences Corporation under contract to the

U.S. Air Force to launch small government payloads.

Expendable Launch Vehicles 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

10 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation
The booster uses a combination of rocket motors

from decommissioned Minuteman 2 ICBMs and

upper stages from Orbital’s Pegasus launch vehicle.

The Minotaur’s first two stages are Minuteman 2

M-55A1 and SR-19 motors, and the upper two stages

are Orion 50 XL and Orion 38 motors from the

Pegasus XL. All four stages use solid propellants.9

The Minotaur made its debut on January 26,

2000, when it successfully launched the FalconSat

and JAWSAT satellites from VAFB. FalconSat was

a spacecraft developed by the Air Force Academy,

while JAWSAT carried three university-built

microsatellites. Minotaur’s only other launch took

place on July 19, 2000, when it launched the Air

Force Research Laboratory’s MightySat 2.1 spacecraft, also from VAFB. The next announced Minotaur

launch, of Taiwan’s ROCSAT-3 microsatellite constellation, is scheduled for early 2005.10

Pegasus - Orbital Sciences Corporation

The Pegasus is an air-launched ELV used to

place small payloads into a variety of low Earth

orbits (LEO). Developed by Orbital Sciences

Corporation in the late 1980s, Pegasus became the

first commercial air-launch system. The Pegasus

booster has three solid-propellant stages and an

optional hydrazine mono-propellant upper stage.

The booster is carried aloft under Orbital Sciences’

“Stargazer” L-1011 carrier aircraft (early Pegasus

launches used a B-52 leased from NASA) to an

altitude of 11,900 meters (39,000 feet), where it is

released. The booster drops for five seconds before

igniting its first stage motor and beginning its ascent

to orbit. The original Pegasus booster entered service

in 1990. Orbital Sciences created a new version of

the Pegasus, the Pegasus XL, with stretched first

and second stages to enhance the booster’s payload

capacity. While the first Pegasus XL launch was in

1994, the first successful Pegasus XL flight did not

occur until 1996. The original, or standard, version

of the Pegasus was retired in 2000, and only the

Pegasus XL is used today. The air-launched nature

of the Pegasus permits launches from a number of

different facilities, depending on the orbital requirements of the payload. Pegasus launches have been

staged from six sites to date: Edwards Air Force

Base (AFB) and VAFB, California; CCAFS, Florida;

NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia; Kwajalein

Missile Range, Marshall Islands; and Gando AFB,

Canary Islands. Five government and one commercial Pegasus launches are planned for 2003.11

Taurus - Orbital Sciences Corporation

The Taurus ELV is a ground-launched vehicle

based on the air-launched Pegasus. The Taurus was

developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation under the

sponsorship of the Defense Advanced Research

Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a standard

small launch vehicle to launch small satellites that are

too large for the Pegasus. The Taurus uses the three

stages of a Pegasus, without wings or stabilizers,

stacked atop a Castor 120 solid rocket motor that

serves as the Taurus’ first stage.12,13

The Taurus has successfully completed five of

six launch attempts since entering service in 1994.

During the latest Taurus launch, on September 21,

2001, an anomaly during first-stage separation

caused the booster to fly off course for several seconds. While the booster resumed its intended trajectory, the deviation prevented the booster’s payload

from reaching orbital velocity.14 A Taurus is slated

to launch Taiwan’s ROCSAT-2 spacecraft in 2003.

Titan Family - Lockheed Martin Corporation

In 1986 Martin Marietta (now Lockheed Martin)

won a contract from the U.S. Air Force to refurbish

14 decommissioned Titan 2 ICBMs into launch

vehicles for government payloads. Eleven of these

boosters have been launched since 1988, most

recently on June 24, 2002. The two-stage Titan 2,

which uses nitrogen tetroxide and Aerozine-50 as

propellants, can place 1,905 kilograms (4,200

pounds) into polar LEO. With the addition of eight

graphite epoxy motor 40 solid-propellant strap-on

boosters, the payload capacity could be increased to

3,540 kilograms (7,800 pounds) to the same orbit.

The last Titan 2 launch is planned for mid-2003.15

The Titan 4 program dates back to 1985,

when the U.S. Air Force commissioned Martin

Marietta (now Lockheed Martin) to develop an

upgraded version of the existing Titan 34D ELV

that could launch Space Shuttle-class payloads as

an alternative to the Shuttle. The Titan 4A was

based on the Titan 34D but featured stretched first

and second stages, two more powerful solid rocket

motors, and a larger payload fairing. The Titan 4A

was used between 1989 and 1998. The Titan 4B,

introduced in 1997, is the most powerful ELV in

the United States today.16 It uses upgraded solid

rocket motors that increase the payload capacity of

the vehicle by 25 percent.17 The Titan 4B is used

2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Expendable Launch Vehicles

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 11
solely for U.S. military payloads, with the exception of the October 1998 launch of NASA’s Cassini

mission. Four Titan 4B launches are planned for

2003. The Titan 4B will be phased out by 2004 in

favor of the heavy EELV variants.

Zenit 3SL - The Sea Launch Company, LLC

The Zenit 3SL is a Ukrainian-Russian launch

vehicle marketed by Sea Launch, a multinational

joint venture led by The Boeing Company. The first

two stages, each powered by a single engine using

liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants, are provided

by the Ukrainian firm SDO Yuzhnoye/PO Yuzhmash

and are the same as those used on the Zenit 2 launch

vehicle. The third stage is a Block DM-SL upper

stage, which also uses liquid oxygen and kerosene

propellants, provided by Russian firm RSC Energia.

Boeing provides the payload fairing and interfaces

for the vehicle.18 The Zenit 3SL is launched from the

Odyssey mobile launch platform, which travels from

its home port in Long Beach, California, to a position on the Equator in the Pacific Ocean for each

launch. Launch operations are controlled from a separate vessel, the Sea Launch Commander. While Sea

Launch conducts commercial launches with a license

from the Federal Aviation Administration Associate

Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

(FAA/AST), the multinational nature of the system

prevents it from carrying U.S. government payloads

at this time. Six Zenit 3SL launches are scheduled

for 2003.

ELV Development Efforts

A number of efforts by both established corporations and startups are currently in progress to

develop new ELVs to carry payloads to orbit. Most

of these designs are focused on the small-payload

sector of the launch market, with the goal of placing payloads as small as a few hundred pounds into

LEO. There is currently a limited market for such

launches, so the success of these vehicles may rely

on their ability to reduce launch costs enough to

enable new markets.

AirLaunch – The Boeing Company/ATK

Thiokol Propulsion

The Boeing Company and ATK Thiokol

Propulsion are currently studying a launch vehicle

system called AirLaunch that features a solid-propellant ELV launched from an aircraft. The AirLaunch

booster will use Castor 120 solid rocket motors for its

first and second stages with a custom-designed third

stage provided by ATK Thiokol. The launch vehicle

will be carried aloft atop a modified Boeing 747-

400F aircraft; at an altitude of 7,300 meters (24,000

feet) it will separate from the aircraft and continue

toward LEO, propelled by its rocket engines. Wing

and tail assemblies attached to the launch vehicle will

provide lift and stability during this initial phase of

the flight; the assemblies will later be jettisoned as

the booster accelerates toward orbit.

AirLaunch was initially designed to launch the

Air Force’s proposed Space Maneuver Vehicle, a

small reusable spacecraft. AirLaunch could also be

used to place payloads of up to 3,400 kilograms

(7,500 pounds) into LEO.19 AirLaunch will have the

capability to operate out of any airport with a runway

longer than 3,650 meters (12,000 feet); launch and

range control could be managed onboard the aircraft,

so, potentially, only down-range ground tracking may

be required. Since announcing the AirLaunch project

in 2000, Boeing has conducted extensive wind tunnel

and structural tests. Future development of AirLaunch

will depend on the requirements of the military and

any commercial customers.20

Aquarius - Space Systems/Loral

Space Systems/Loral of Palo Alto, California,

has proposed Aquarius, a low-cost launch vehicle

designed to carry small, inexpensive payloads into

LEO. Aquarius will be designed to trade reliability

for low launch costs: while the vehicle could launch

Expendable Launch Vehicles 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

12 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Vehicle: AirLaunch

Developer: Boeing/ATK Thiokol

First launch: To be determined

Number of stages: 3

Payload performance: 3,400 kg (7,500 lbs.) to LEO

Launch sites: To be determined

AirLaunch
payloads far less expensively than existing boosters,

up to one third of its launches will be expected to

fail. The vehicle will be primarily intended to launch

into orbit bulk products, like water, fuel, and other

consumables, that are inexpensive to replace in the

event of a launch failure.

As currently designed, Aquarius will be a single-stage vehicle 43 meters (141 feet) high and 4

meters (13.1 feet) in diameter and powered by a single engine using liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellants. The vehicle will be launched from the ocean to

minimize launch infrastructure and will be able to

place a 1,000-kilogram (2,205-pound) payload into 

a 200-kilometer (125-mile), 52-degree orbit. The

payload, located in the base of the vehicle, will be

extracted by an orbiting space tug for transfer to its

ultimate destination, after which the vehicle will

deorbit and be destroyed.21

Space Systems/Loral studied Aquarius under a

$110,000 grant awarded by the state of California

in April 2001 and delivered a final report in June

2002. Space Systems/Loral teamed with Microcosm

of El Segundo, California, and Wilson Composite

Technologies of Folsom, California, for the study.

Future plans for the Aquarius concept have not

been announced.22

Eagle S-Series - E’Prime Aerospace Corporation

E’Prime Aerospace of Titusville, Florida, is

developing a family of launch vehicles called the

Eagle S-Series, based on the LGM-118A Peacekeeper

ICBM design. Like the Peacekeeper, the vehicle will

be ejected from a ground-based silo using a compressed-gas system. At a height of 61 meters (200

feet), the vehicle’s engines will ignite. The smallest

vehicle, the Eaglet, could launch 580 kilograms

(1,280 pounds) into LEO, while a somewhat larger

version, the Eagle, could put 1,360 kilograms

(3,000 pounds) into LEO. Both will use solidpropellant lower stages and liquid-propellant upper

stages. E’Prime has also proposed larger vehicles,

designated S-1 through S-7, that will be able to

place considerably larger payloads into LEO and

add a geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) capability.

The Eagle S-Series concept dates back to 1987, when

the company signed a commercialization agreement with the

Air Force to use Peacekeeper

technology for commercial

launch vehicles. Provisions of

the Strategic Arms Reduction

Treaty I severely restricted

development of the first-stage

motor for much of the 1990s.

The company has since updated

the design of the first stage to avoid the arms control

restrictions. The Air Force approved user manuals for

the Eaglet and Eagle vehicles in April 2001. E’Prime

signed an agreement with NASA in February 2001

that gives the company non-interference use of available property and services. The company plans to

launch the Eaglet and Eagle boosters from facilities at

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) that the company has yet to construct.23

Falcon - Space Exploration Technologies

Corporation

Elon Musk, an Internet entrepreneur, founded

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation 

(Space X) of El Segundo, California, in June 2002.

The company is currently developing the Falcon

launch vehicle, a small launcher capable of placing

2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Expendable Launch Vehicles

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 13

Eaglet and Eagle

Vehicle: Aquarius

Developer: Space Systems/Loral

First launch: To be determined

Number of stages: 1

Payload performance: 1,000 kg (2,205 lbs.) to LEO

Launch sites: To be determined

Vehicle: Eaglet/Eagle

Developer: E’Prime Aerospace

First launch: To be determined

Number of stages: 2

Payload performance: 580 kg (1,280 lbs.) to LEO

(Eaglet); 1,360 kg (3,000 lbs.) to LEO (Eagle)

Launch sites: Kennedy Space Center (KSC)

Vehicle: Falcon

Developer: Space Exploration Technologies Corporation

First launch: Late 2003

Number of stages: 2

Payload performance: 454 kg (1,000 lbs.) to LEO

Launch sites: VAFB, CCAFS
up to 454 kilograms (1,000 pounds)

into LEO. The two-stage vehicle will

use liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants in engines the company is

developing internally.24 Space X initially plans to launch the Falcon two

to three times a year from Space

Launch Complex (SLC)-3W at VAFB

and Launch Complex (LC)-46 at

CCAFS, eventually ramping up to

five to six flights a year at a price of

$6-10 million per launch. The company plans to begin engine test firings in early 

2003 and to assemble its first vehicle by June 2003

in preparation for launch later in the year.25 The

Falcon may later be used as the second and third

stages of a larger vehicle the company is currently

contemplating.

LV-1 - Rocket Propulsion Engineering Company

Rocket Propulsion Engineering

Company of Mojave, California, has proposed developing the LV-1. The LV-1 is a

two-stage ELV capable of launching 204

kilograms (450 pounds) into LEO. The

vehicle uses hydrogen peroxide and

kerosene pump-fed engines and graphiteepoxy tanks. The company is working on

two suborbital vehicles, the SV-1 and SV-2,

that will test the engines and other technologies used in the LV-1 and anticipates

beginning test launches of those suborbital vehicles no earlier than 2004.26

Scorpius Family - Microcosm, Inc.

Microcosm, Inc. of El Segundo, California, is

developing the Scorpius family of ELVs. The boosters feature a modular design, using a number of

identical propulsion pods, each with its own liquidpropellant engines and graphite-composite propellant tanks. The Sprite Mini-Lift vehicle, the smallest

orbital version of the Scorpius family, will use six

booster pods, each with a 89,000-newton (20,000-

pound-force) engine, clustered around a sustainer

pod with a 22,250-newton (5,000-pound-force)

engine. The Sprite Mini-Lift will be able to place

315 kilograms (700 pounds) into LEO and 150 kilograms (330 pounds) into sun-synchronous orbit

(SSO). Two larger Scorpius vehicles are under

study: the Antares Intermediate-Lift, capable of

launching 2,950 kilograms (6,500 pounds) into

LEO, and the Exodus Medium-Lift, capable of placing 6,800 kilograms (15,000 pounds) into LEO.

In March 2001

Microcosm successfully

launched its SR-XM

sounding rocket from the

White Sands Missile

Range, New Mexico.27

The Sprite Mini-Lift’s

sustainer pod has the

same design and engine

as the SR-XM. The

Sprite’s booster pods will also use the same design

as the SR-XM, but with larger engines. Microcosm

is currently developing the SR-XM-2 sounding

rocket to test the larger engine. The company anticipates performing the first test launch of the Sprite

Mini-Lift from the California Spaceport by the middle of 2005, with the vehicle entering commercial

service nine months later at a cost per launch to

Microcosm of $2 million.28

SLC-1 - Space Launch Corporation

Space Launch Corporation of Irvine, California,

is in the initial development stages of its SLC-1 launch

system. The SLC-1 will use a small expendable

Expendable Launch Vehicles 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

14 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Falcon

Vehicle: LV-1

Developer: Rocket Propulsion Engineering Company

First launch: No sooner than 2004

Number of stages: 2

Payload performance: 204 kg (450 lbs.) to LEO

Launch sites: To be determined

LV-1

Vehicle: Scorpius Sprite Mini-Lift

Developer: Microcosm

First launch: Mid-2005

Number of stages: 2

Payload performance: 315 kg (700 lbs.) to LEO, 150 kg

(330 lbs.) to sun-synchronous orbit (SSO)

Launch sites: California Spaceport

Vehicle: SLC-1

Developer: Space Launch Corporation

First launch: Late 2004

Number of stages: To be determined

Payload performance: 50-60 kg (110-132 lbs.) to SSO

Launch sites: To be determined

Scorpius Sprite Mini-Lift

LEO Vehicle
booster consisting of multiple, custom-built, solid

rocket motors based on existing technology. The

booster will be deployed from an existing jet aircraft

and be able to put payloads of up to 50 to 60 kilograms

(110 to 132 pounds) into an 800-kilometer (500-mile)

SSO. The company is targeting microsatellites and

other small payloads that will otherwise be launched

as secondary payloads on larger vehicles. The company anticipates the first launch of its system by the

end of 2004. Development of an avionics and propulsion module for the SLC-1 is being funded under a

contract awarded by DARPA in April 2002. At the

same time, DARPA awarded Space Launch

Corporation a Phase 1 study contract for the

Responsive Access, Small Cargo, and Affordable

Launch (RASCAL) small payload launch system.29

Sounding Rockets

In addition to orbital launch vehicles, there

are a number of suborbital ELVs, or sounding rockets, in use today. These vehicles, which primarily

use solid propellants, support a variety of applications, including astronomical observations, atmospheric research, and microgravity experiments.

Black Brant

Black Brant rockets have been manufactured

since 1962, with over 800 vehicles having been

launched during that time. The Black Brant motor

and Nihka motors used on some Black Brant versions are manufactured in Canada by Bristol

Aerospace while the Nike, Talos, and Taurus

motors used on some Black Brant versions are built

in the United States. The vehicles are integrated by

the launch operator. In the United States, NASA

has been a frequent user of Black Brant vehicles.

Versions of the Black Brant can carry payloads

ranging from 70 to 850 kilograms (154 to 1,874

pounds) to altitudes of 150 to 1,500 kilometers (93

to 932 miles). Black Brant vehicles can provide up

to 20 minutes of microgravity time during a flight.30

The smallest version of the Black Brant family

is the single-stage Black Brant 5 vehicle. The rocket

is 533 centimeters (210 inches) long and 43.8 centimeters (17.26 inches) in diameter, and produces an

average thrust of 75,731 newtons (17,025 poundsforce). The Black Brant 5 motor is used as the second or third stage in larger multi-stage versions of

the Black Brant. The most powerful Black Brant

model, the Black Brant 12, is a four-stage vehicle

that uses the Black Brant 5 motor as its third stage.

The Black Brant 12 can launch a 113-kilogram 

(250-pound) payload to an altitude of at least 1,400

kilometers (870 miles), or a 454-kilogram (1,000-

pound) payload to an altitude of at least 400 kilometers (249 miles).31

Oriole

Astrotech Space Operations developed the

Oriole sounding rocket in the late 1990s to provide

launch services for commercial and scientific payloads. The Oriole was the first new sounding rocket

developed in the United States in 25 years and is the

first privately-developed sounding rocket. The Oriole

is a single-stage vehicle with a graphite epoxy motor

22 manufactured by Alliant Techsystems in Rocket

Center, West Virginia. The vehicle can also be combined with other motors to create two-stage sounding

rockets with the Oriole serving as the second stage.

The Oriole is 396 centimeters (156 inches) long and

56 centimeters (22 inches) in diameter, and generates

an average thrust of 92,100 newtons (20,700 pounds2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Expendable Launch Vehicles

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 15

Black Brant Variants
force). The Oriole can provide payloads with six to

nine minutes of microgravity during flight.

The first flight of the

Oriole took place on July 7,

2000, when the Oriole was

launched from the NASA

Wallops Flight Facility in

Virginia. The launch took

place in a two-stage configuration with the Oriole serving

as the second stage and a

Terrier Mk 12 motor as the

first stage. The Oriole reached

a peak altitude of 368.5 kilometers (229 miles) 315 seconds after launch during the

test flight.32 In July 2001 SPACEHAB sold the

Oriole program to DTI Associates, who integrates

the vehicle and offers it commercially.33

Terrier-Orion

Terrier-Orion is a two-stage, spin-stabilized

sounding rocket using a Terrier Mk 12 Mod 1

engine for the first stage and an Improved Orion

motor for the second stage. The Terrier is a surplus

U.S. Navy missile motor, while

the Orion is a surplus U.S.

Army missile motor. DTI

Associates of Arlington,

Virginia (formerly a part of

Astrotech Space Operations, a

SPACEHAB, Inc., subsidiary),

is the general contractor for

vehicle integration. The

Terrier-Orion is 10.7 meters

(35.1 feet) long; the Terrier

stage is 46 centimeters (18

inches) in diameter, and the

Orion is 36 centimeters (14

inches) in diameter. The Terrier-Orion can place

payloads of up to 290 kilograms (639 pounds) to

altitudes of up to 190 kilometers (118 miles).34

A different version of the Terrier-Orion booster

uses the more powerful Terrier Mk 70motor on the

first stage. This version was used for two FAA/ASTlicensed suborbital launches carried out by Astrotech

Space Operations/DTI at the Woomera Instrumented

Range in Australia in 2001 and 2002. The second

flight, in July 2002, successfully flew the HyShot

scramjet engine experiment.35

Expendable Launch Vehicles 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

16 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Terrier-Orion

Oriole
This section describes active and emerging reusable

launch vehicle (RLV) programs in the United States.

Emphasis is placed on vehicles being developed by

private companies without the assistance of the government; many of these companies are developing

space hardware for the first time. Government RLV

programs are also included to provide context, particularly since the Space Shuttle is considered a firstgeneration RLV and the precursor of what may

become a long line of commercial and government

next-generation systems. Experiences gained by operating the Space Shuttle for over 20 years have helped

solve, as well as introduce, crucial problems related to

the design of more efficient RLV systems. Current government programs to develop follow-on RLVs (such

as the Space Launch Initiative [SLI]) depend heavily

on private sector innovation and may lay the foundation for future, privately developed RLVs for commercial and selected government applications. The first

section addresses three RLV developments being pursued by the National Aeronautics and Space

Administration (NASA) as a well as a project sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects

Agency (DARPA). Commercial RLV projects underway or under consideration, including those vying for

the X PRIZE®, comprise the balance of the section.

Government RLV Development Efforts

Both NASA and the Department of Defense

(DoD) have long been interested in the development

of RLVs. During the late 1950s and 1960s, NASA

and the Air Force developed the X-15 to study

hypersonic flight. Following from the successes of

this program, NASA went on to great human space

flight accomplishments with the Mercury, Gemini,

Apollo, and Space Shuttle programs. Throughout

the 1980s and 1990s, both NASA and DoD continued with several joint and independent experimental

RLVs to improve reliability, minimize operating

costs, and demonstrate “aircraft-like” operations.

None of these concepts, however, resulted in a fully

operational vehicle. 

Today, NASA and DoD both still endeavor to

develop new, reliable RLVs. Still the world’s only

operational RLV, NASA’s Space Shuttle is aging and

never achieved the launch rates and economies of

scale the space agency originally anticipated for the

vehicle. In 1999 NASA introduced its Integrated

Space Transportation Plan (ISTP), an investment

strategy for its space transportation needs. The ISTP

included a program of Space Shuttle upgrades; SLI,

a $4.8-billion technology development program to

support NASA in making a decision on a new RLV

to replace the Shuttle; and a program to develop the

technologies for third- and fourth-generation RLVs.

The space agency also funded several RLV research

vehicles. DoD supported an assortment of military

space plane and related technology concepts.

In 2002 both NASA and the military reevaluated their RLV efforts. NASA has proposed a new

ISTP to better coordinate its space transportation

efforts with its International Space Station (ISS) and

science and research needs. The proposed ISTP continues to support the Space Shuttle but restructures

SLI to accommodate the development of an ISS

crew transfer vehicle called the Orbital Space Plane

in the near term and the continued support of nextgeneration and subsequent generations of launch

technology for the far term. The Air Force and

NASA also conducted a joint study to explore their

respective RLV requirements and, after finding several common requirements, agreed to cooperate as

appropriate on RLV development. In addition, some

military space requirements may be met by

DARPA’s Responsive Access, Small Cargo, and

Affordable Launch (RASCAL) program, which may

yield a vehicle that can meet the demand for launch

on short notice.

Space Shuttle

Consisting of an

expendable external tank,

two reusable solid rocket

boosters, and one of four

reusable orbiters, NASA’s

Space Transportation

System, commonly referred

to as the Space Shuttle,

remains the world’s only operational RLV. The

Shuttle has conducted more than 100 launches since

its introduction in 1981. The orbiters Columbia,

Atlantis, and Endeavour collectively performed five

successful missions in 2002, with four of these missions supporting the ISS and one servicing the

2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Reusable Launch Vehicles

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 17

Reusable Launch Vehicles

Space Shuttle
Hubble Space Telescope. The Space Shuttle is the

only means available today for completing assembly

of the ISS.

Intending to fly the Shuttle until at least the

middle of the next decade, NASA is committed to

investing in the Space Shuttle fleet to maintain

safety and reliability and extend orbiter service life

until a replacement RLV system is developed. In

2002 the space agency restructured its Shuttle

upgrades program to better align investments with

agency goals and the ISTP. Now called the Service

Life Extension Program, the program’s primary

objective is to reduce risk and preserve Shuttle

safety and viability through investments in Shuttle

upgrades and infrastructure revitalization. NASA

will consider factors including safety, reliability,

supportability, performance, and cost reduction in

prioritizing improvement projects.

NASA is presently pursuing two major

upgrades. The Advanced Health Management

System Phase 1, scheduled for first flight in 2004,

is an upgrade to the Space Shuttle Main Engines to

provide improved real-time engine vibration monitoring and improved engine anomaly response

capabilities. A second phase of the upgrade has yet

to be funded. The Cockpit Avionics Upgrade,

whose first flight is expected in 2006, will enhance

new situational awareness and reduce crew workload by providing automated control of complex

procedures. It will also permit implementation of

new software to manage flight aborts. NASA is also

working to improve the durability of Shuttle landing gear assemblies as well as to use new welding

procedures to improve External Tank reliability and

lower its production time and cost.36

The Space Shuttle’s day-to-day operations

have been managed by United Space Alliance, a

Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture, since 1996.

NASA as well as others in the space community

have raised the possibility that even more responsibility for the Shuttle might be shifted from government to private sector control. A task force commissioned by NASA to examine this possibility suggested in 2002 a variety of options through which

the space agency could further competitive outsourcing of Shuttle operations. NASA has not yet

announced how it will proceed.37

Orbital Space Plane

One of NASA’s key requirements for space

transportation is ensuring the ability to transport crews

to and from the ISS, both under normal operations

and emergency return situations. While the Space

Shuttle and the Russian Soyuz vehicles currently

serve these needs, these options may not exist for the

duration of ISS operations, which will extend until at

least 2016. In 2002 NASA cancelled the X-38, a fullscale prototype of a crew return vehicle that was

intended to serve as a lifeboat for the ISS.

The newest component of NASA’s SLI, the

Orbital Space Plane is NASA’s proposed vehicle

architecture to meet the space agency’s requirements

for the ISS with minimal cost and risk. NASA anticipates the vehicle beginning as a crew return vehicle

that will be launched to the ISS atop an Evolved

Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV). Operations will

begin in 2010. By 2012 the Orbital Space Plane will

be able to support the transfer of crew as well as limited cargo both to and from space. NASA envisions

that the Orbital Space Plane will serve as a complement to the Space Shuttle for launching crews into

space and could potentially fulfill ISS logistical needs. 

NASA expects to approach the program

aggressively and complete preliminary designs by

2005. The space agency awarded SLI contracts in

November 2002 to Boeing and Lockheed Martin for

flight demonstrator technologies to reduce the risks

associated with the development of the Orbital

Space Plane. Boeing will continue development of

the X-37 experimental vehicle to demonstrate key

flight technologies (described in greater detail in the

“Enabling Technologies” section), while Lockheed

Martin will develop a launch pad abort demonstrator

to prove emergency crew escape technologies.

Reusable Launch Vehicles 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

18 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Vehicles: Space Shuttles Columbia, Discovery, Atlantis,

and Endeavour

Developer: Rockwell International (now Boeing). Fleet is

managed, operated, and maintained on the ground by

United Space Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing

and Lockheed Martin

First launch: April 12, 1981

Number of stages: 1.5

Payload performance: 24,900 kg (54,890 lbs.) to low

Earth orbit (LEO)

Launch site: Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida

Markets served: Non-commercial payloads and ISS access
Next Generation Launch Technology

The second component of NASA’s proposed

restructure of SLI, the Next Generation Launch

Technology program combines ongoing RLV development efforts with the Third Generation RLV program. It consists of investments in RLV propulsion,

structures, and operations, focusing on research into

kerosene-based first-stage engine designs as well as

advanced hypersonics. NASA does not intend to make

a decision on the development of a next-generation

RLV any earlier than 2009, with a first flight no

sooner than 2015. NASA plans to work with DoD to

assess common requirements and opportunities for

cooperation on future RLV development. 

RASCAL

DARPA started work in 2002 on a project to

create a low-cost partially reusable launch vehicle

for small payloads. The Responsive Access, Small

Cargo, and Affordable Launch (RASCAL) program

seeks to develop a two-stage air launch system that

can place payloads weighing up to 100 kilograms

(220 pounds) into low Earth orbit (LEO). The RASCAL first stage will be a jet aircraft that flies to an

altitude of at least 30,500 meters (100,000 feet).

The aircraft will then deploy an expendable rocket

to place the payload into orbit. The vehicle will be

able to put at least 50 kilograms (110 pounds) into

any inclination, including 75 kilograms (165

pounds) into sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) and

heavier payloads into equatorial orbits. The RASCAL vehicle will be able to take off within one

hour of a launch command and fly again within 24

hours at a cost of no more than $750,000 per flight.

To achieve these performance goals, RASCAL will use an engine technology called Mass

Injected Pre-Compressor Cooling (MIPCC) on its

aircraft stage. A MIPCC engine injects a coolant,

such as water or liquid oxygen, into the engine

inlet. This process cools and compresses the airflow, extending the engine’s limits and allowing 

it to operate at higher altitudes and greater speeds

than otherwise possible. MIPCC will allow a 

vehicle powered by conventional turbofan engines

to achieve a speed of Mach 4, an altitude over

30,500 meters (100,000 feet), and a dynamic pressure of less than 4.9 kilograms per square meter 

(1 pound per square foot). At that dynamic pressure, the rocket’s upper stage can be released without a fairing protecting the payload. Conventional

solid- or liquid-propellant engines can be used for

the upper stage.38

In April 2002 DARPA awarded six Phase 1

contracts to companies to initiate studies of the

RASCAL design. Those contracts, valued at

between $1 and $2 million each, were awarded to

Coleman Research Corporation, Northrop

Grumman Corporation, Pioneer Rocketplane

Corporation, Space Launch Corporation, Space

Access, LLC, and Delta Velocity. DARPA plans to

select two companies in early 2003 for Phase 2

studies, leading to the selection of a single contractor

to build the vehicle one year later. Flight tests of a

RASCAL vehicle are scheduled for 2006.39

Commercial RLV Development Efforts

Astroliner – Kelly Space and Technology, Inc.

Kelly Space and Technology, Inc., is developing an RLV to address the needs of various suborbital

markets, ISS customers, and small payloads to destinations higher than LEO. Kelly’s piloted Astroliner

will be based on its patented, horizontal-takeoff, towlaunch technique and is designed to carry humans and

cargo to and from suborbital and orbital destinations.

The two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) system will be towed

to altitudes of 6,096 meters (20,000 feet) using a

modified Boeing 747 aircraft. Astroliner’s onboard

turbine engines will supplement the thrust of the tow

2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Reusable Launch Vehicles

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 19

RASCAL

Vehicle: Astroliner

Developer: Kelly Space and Technology

First launch: 2005

Number of stages: 3-4 (including towing aircraft)

Payload performance: 4,690 kg (10,340 lbs.) to LEO

Possible launch sites: To be determined

Targeted markets: Public space transportation and

other emerging markets
aircraft during the initial ascent. The RLV system

will be released at altitude and, using its rocket

engines, will ascend to stage separation. The secondstage system for the specific mission will proceed to

orbit. The first stage will return to its planned landing site and use conventional turbofan engines for

powered landing.

Astroliner includes a number of different upperstage vehicles and intends to serve current and future

customers anticipated through 2030, including both

government and private citizen space travelers. Kelly

expects the system design to readily accommodate

the use of customer-supplied, orbit-transfer stages in

conjunction with their satellites or other payloads.

Kelly believes its tow-launch technique will

facilitate significant reductions in expensive ground

facilities, achieve system operating safety and reliability that approaches commercial airline operations,

and enable delivery of heavier payloads than can be

achieved by other air-dropped system concepts.

Under a cooperative program with NASA’s

Dryden Flight Research Center and the Air Force

Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base (AFB),

California, Kelly has successfully demonstrated its

tow-to-launch concept. Using a modified QF-106

(called Eclipse) and a C-141A tow aircraft, Kelly successfully conducted six flight tests to demonstrate the

RLV tow-launch technique in late 1997 and early

1998. Kelly expects tow tests and atmospheric powered flight-testing of Astroliner to begin in the latter

half of 2003 and to last until early 2004. This series

of tests will be followed by suborbital flights later in

2004. The first orbital flight is planned for mid-2005,

with operations planned for early 2006.40

Kelly teamed with Vought Aircraft Industries in

January 2001 to submit a joint proposal for the development of an RLV under NASA’s SLI. NASA, however, did not award the companies a contract when the

first cycle of the SLI Phase 1 contract awards was

announced in May 2001.

Black Armadillo - Armadillo Aerospace

Success in the development of an X PRIZE®

vehicle is Armadillo Aerospace’s first step to considering future suborbital and potentially orbital launch

services. The company’s specific objective beyond

winning the X PRIZE® is to adapt its X PRIZE®

vehicle for space tourism and provide a suborbital

platform for small microgravity research payloads.

The X PRIZE® vehicle will consist of an

autonomously-guided single stage powered by four

canted motors fueled with hydrogen peroxide monopropellant. The vehicle will be designed to carry

three 91-kilogram (200-pound) passengers to an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles).

Armadillo has been making significant

progress in the development of test articles and

Reusable Launch Vehicles 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

20 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Armadillo’s Test Article

Kelly Astroliner

Vehicle: Black Armadillo

Developer: Armadillo Aerospace

First launch: December 2003

Number of stages: 1

Payload performance: To be determined

Possible launch sites: Oklahoma Spaceport and White

Sands, New Mexico

Targeted markets: Public space transportation and

other emerging markets
components. Several key milestones were reached

during 2002 in preparation for the group’s first 

X PRIZE® flight attempt in December 2003.

After about a year of modifications to its firstgeneration test article capable of carrying one person, the first crewed test flight was performed in

September 2002. The vehicle, powered by a single

engine fed by two hydrogen peroxide tanks, lifted

off smoothly and remained in the air for about six

seconds before coming to rest. The flight was

designed as a full systems test, and was not intended to achieve an operational flight altitude. This

represented the first crewed flight test by any of the

X PRIZE® contenders.

In November, Armadillo traveled to Burns Flat,

Oklahoma, a proposed site of the future Oklahoma

Spaceport, to conduct an uncrewed flight test of a

single-engine rocket powered by hydrogen peroxide.

The vehicle lifted into the air with its engine producing about 2,669 newtons (600 pounds-force) of

thrust. At an altitude of about 30 meters (98 feet), the

main engine shut off due to a computer failure and

the vehicle fell to Earth. Most of the critical components, such as the guidance systems, were salvaged

for use in an improved test article expected to be

launched in early 2003.41

K-1 – Kistler Aerospace Corporation

On May 17, 2001, Kistler Aerospace

Corporation was awarded a contract worth up to

$135 million under NASA’s SLI to use the K-1 as a

flight demonstrator under NRA 8-30.42 Kistler will

provide flight results of 13 embedded technologies

flown on the first four K-1 flights. These technologies include propellant densification, novel parachute

and airbag landing systems, and avionics. NASA

also has options to use the K-1 as a test bed for

advanced technology experiments in advanced 

materials, thermal protection systems, avionics, and

other technology areas. This award followed less

than a year after Kistler was awarded a three-month

study contract from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight

Center to assess the K-1 as a potential vehicle to provide alternate access to ISS. The K-1 is 75 percent

complete.43

Kistler has been

developing the K-1 for

commercial launches of

LEO payloads. The K-1

design was developed in

the mid-1990s as a TSTO

vehicle with a payload

capacity of approximately

4,535 kilograms (10,000

pounds) to LEO and a

then-expected market price

of $17 million per launch.

Kistler has completed a

conceptual design for an

Active Dispenser that will

deploy payloads to medium

Earth orbits (MEO), geosynchronous transfer orbits

(GTO), and interplanetary trajectories. The Active

Dispenser will expand the K-1’s capability beyond

LEO (approximately 1,570 kilograms [3,460

pounds] to GTO) at a launch price of $25 million.

The K-1 also will be capable of providing cargo resupply and return services for the ISS.

The K-1 will be able to launch multiple small payloads on dedicated missions or as secondary payloads.

Kistler is working with Astrium, Ltd., in the United

Kingdom to develop reusable payload dispensers

for multiple small payloads.

The K-1 will launch vertically like a conventional expendable launch vehicle (ELV) but will use

a unique combination of parachutes and air bags to

recover its two stages. The vehicle, designed to

operate with a small complement of ground personnel, will be transported to the launch site and erected with a mobile transporter. The K-1 will measure

about 37 meters (121 feet) in height and have a

launch mass of 382,300 kilograms (843,000

pounds).

The K-1 employs off-the-shelf technology and

components in its design. The first stage, known as

2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Reusable Launch Vehicles

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 21

Vehicle: K-1

Developer: Kistler Aerospace Corporation

First launch: To be determined

Number of stages: 2

Payload performance: 4,535 kg (10,000 lbs.) to LEO;

1,570 kg (3,460 lbs.) to geosynchronous transfer orbit

(GTO)

Possible launch sites: Woomera, Australia; Nevada Test

Site

Targeted markets: Deployment of LEO payloads, GTO

payloads (with Active Dispenser), ISS re-supply and

cargo return missions

K-1
the Launch Assist Platform, is powered by three liquid oxygen (LOX)/kerosene GenCorp Aerojet AJ26

engines. These engines include elements of the 

NK-33 engines originally built by the Soviet Union

in the 1960s. After launch, the Launch Assist

Platform separates from the second stage and

restarts its center engine to fly a return trajectory to

a landing area near the launch site. The Launch

Assist Platform deploys parachutes and descends to

the landing area where air bags are deployed to

cushion its landing.

The second stage, or Orbital Vehicle, continues into LEO, where it releases its payload. The

Orbital Vehicle is powered by a single Aerojet AJ26-

60 engine (derived from the Russian NK-43 engine).

Following payload separation, the Orbital Vehicle

continues on orbit for about 24 hours, after which a

LOX/ethanol orbital maneuvering system performs

a deorbit burn. The Orbital Vehicle ends its ballistic

re-entry profile by deploying parachutes and air

bags in a manner similar to the Launch Assist

Platform.

Kistler expects to operate the K-1 from two

launch sites: Woomera, Australia, and the Nevada

Test Site. Kistler Woomera Pty., Ltd., a wholly

owned subsidiary of Kistler Aerospace Corporation,

will operate the K-1 from Woomera. Kistler received

authorization from the Australian government to

begin construction of launch facilities at Woomera in

April 1998 and held a groundbreaking ceremony at

the site several months later. The launch pad’s design

is complete, and Kistler will conduct its initial K-1

flights and commercial operations from Woomera. In

1998, Kistler signed an agreement with the Nevada

Test Site Development Corporation to permit Kistler

to occupy a segment of the U.S. Department of

Energy’s Nevada Test Site for its launch operations.

The Federal Aviation Administration Associate

Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

(FAA/AST) environmental review process was completed for the Kistler project in 2002.

Pathfinder – Pioneer Rocketplane

The Pathfinder traces its heritage to a military

space plane concept called “Black Horse,” which

was promoted within the Air Force in the early

1990s. Pioneer Rocketplane developed a derivative

design that it called Pathfinder and proposed a precursor to it as a potential design for NASA’s nowcancelled X-34 vehicle.

Pioneer Rocketplane continued Pathfinder

development, and in June 1997 it was awarded one of

four, $2-million NASA Low Cost Boost Technology

Program contracts to develop detailed preliminary

designs and to conduct wind tunnel tests for concepts

to launch small satellites.

The vehicle will

be operated by a crew

of two pilots with

experience in highperformance aircraft

and will have accommodations to carry

two passengers. Both

air-breathing jet

engines and LOX/ kerosene rocket engines will

power the vehicle. The 23-meter- (75-foot-) long

vehicle will take off horizontally using conventional turbofan jet engines. When it reaches an altitude

of 6,000 meters (19,685 feet), Pathfinder will

receive 59,000 kilograms (130,000 pounds) of LOX

from a tanker aircraft. After disconnecting from the

tanker, Pathfinder will ignite its RD-120 rocket

engine and climb to an altitude of 112 kilometers

(70 miles) at a speed of about Mach 12. Once out

of the atmosphere, Pathfinder will be able to open

its cargo bay doors and release its payload with a

conventional rocket upper stage. The payload will

proceed to its orbit while Pathfinder re-enters the

atmosphere. After deceleration to subsonic speeds,

Pathfinder will re-start its turbofan engines and land

horizontally.44 Pathfinder’s maximum payload

capacity to LEO will be 1,818 kilograms (4,000

pounds). The first air-breathing test flights are

planned for three to four years after the acquisition

of funding and will be followed two to three months

later by rocket-powered test flights.45

Pioneer Rocketplane is designing Pathfinder

as a low-cost alternative for small- to medium-class

Reusable Launch Vehicles 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

22 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Vehicle: Pathfinder

Developer: Pioneer Rocketplane

First launch: No earlier than 2006

Number of stages: 2 (Second “stage” is an air refueling

aircraft)

Payload performance: 1,818 kg (4,000 lbs.) to LEO

Possible launch sites: Oklahoma Spaceport

Targeted markets: Launch of small- and medium-class

payloads

Pathfinder
payloads to LEO. The company is concurrently

developing a scaled-down version of the Pathfinder

vehicle, called the Pathfinder XP, to provide passenger service along suborbital trajectories. Pioneer

Rocketplane has an agreement with the U.S.-based

company Space Adventures to offer suborbital

flights to customers paying between $98,000 and

$100,000 per seat.46

The company recently contracted with a costanalysis team to conduct a technical appraisal on

Pathfinder and its infrastructure as a requirement to

receive financial support from the state of Oklahoma.

On September 13, 2000, Pioneer signed a Memorandum

of Understanding with the Oklahoma Space Industry

Development Authority (OSIDA). Under the terms

of the Memorandum of Understanding, OSIDA

agreed to provide up to $300 million in revenue bond

financing to help finance the development of the

Pathfinder launch vehicle. In 2002 Pioneer agreed

to conduct launch operations from the proposed

Oklahoma Spaceport at the former Clinton-Sherman

AFB in Washita County, Oklahoma. Currently,

Pioneer plans to base its vehicles at the Oklahoma

Spaceport and ferry-fly to approved launch sites 

on the East or West Coasts.47 In 2002 DARPA

awarded Pioneer Rocketplane an estimated $1- to

$2-million contract.48

Pioneer’s first suborbital spaceplane to be

developed is a half-scale version of the Pathfinder

without the payload bay. This spaceplane is intended to service the suborbital adventure travel market,

and is also Pioneer’s X PRIZE® vehicle. The spaceplane will carry a minimum of two passengers, plus

a pilot and co-pilot. The half-scale vehicle takes off

fully fueled and does not require the tanker operations that the larger spaceplane needs for LEO

satellite launch operations.

SA-1 – SPACE ACCESS®, LLC

SPACE ACCESS®, LLC, is developing the

SA-1, an uncrewed RLV that uses a hybrid propulsion system and one or two rocket-powered upper

stages to deliver a range of payloads to LEO or GTO.

The propulsion system for the system’s first

stage, the “aerospacecraft,” is based on a proprietary modification by SPACE ACCESS® to a ramjet

engine design that was tested in early 1960s. The

modification to the engines allows the ramjets to

operate at both subsonic and supersonic speeds

(ramjets normally only operate above Mach 2).49

One of the company’s subcontractors, Kaiser

Marquardt, has tested elements of the propulsion

system,50 and SPACE ACCESS® worked with the

Air Force Research Laboratory in September 1995

under a Cooperative Research and Development

Agreement to review the SA-1 aeromechanics and

the “ejector” ramjet propulsion system. SPACE

ACCESS® has wind-tunnel tested the ejector ramjet

engine at all of the altitudes and speeds of the SA-1’s

planned flight profile.51

The SA-1 vehicle will take off horizontally

from a conventional runway, using a mixture of air

and liquid hydrogen to power its ejector ramjet

engines. As the aerospacecraft climbs and accelerates

and reaches the limits of the atmosphere, it will gradually transition from ramjets to liquid rocket propulsion in order to reach its final altitude of over 100

kilometers (62 miles) and speed of Mach 9. The

aerospacecraft will then deploy an upper stage with

its satellite payload and return to land on a conventional runway. The SA-1 will carry a single, rocketpowered upper stage for LEO missions and two

upper stages for GTO. After deploying the satellite

payload, the upper stage will deorbit and return to

land horizontally on the same runway.52

2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Reusable Launch Vehicles

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 23

Vehicle: SA-1

Developer: SPACE ACCESS®, LLC

First launch: 2007

Number of stages: 2-3 (depending on payload requirements)

Payload performance: 15,000 kg (33,000 lbs.) to LEO,

5,200 kg (11,500 lbs.) to GTO

Possible launch sites: Texas Spaceport; Homestead Air

Reserve Base, FL; and KSC/CCAFS, FL

Targeted markets: Launch of LEO and GTO payloads

SA-1
Reusable Launch Vehicles 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

24 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

The SA-1 vehicle will be able to launch payloads of over 5,200 kilograms (11,500 pounds) to

GTO. Although SPACE ACCESS® intends to pursue

deployment of commercial geosynchronous orbit

(GEO) satellites as its primary market, the SA-1 will

also have a capability of deploying well over 15,000

kilograms (33,000 pounds) to LEO. The SA-1’s payload capability and reliability will also make the 

SA-1 well suited for conducting re-supply missions 

to the ISS.53

In 1999, SPACE ACCESS®, LLC, received a

California Space Authority grant in the amount of

$50,000 for a reusable launch vehicle structural

concept evaluation. Research helped determine a

second stage orbital vehicle design. A NASA Space

Transportation Architecture Study program contract

was signed in 1998 to further refine designs of the

orbital vehicle, which will give the SA-1 the capability to provide human access to space. In cooperation with the state of California, SPACE ACCESS®

is now conducting tests of its proprietary integral

hot structure and ramjet designs.54

Xerus - XCOR Aerospace

Since XCOR’s founding in 1999, the company

has been focusing on the development of reusable

engines with high reliability, efficient turnaround and

maintenance, and safe operations. XCOR has developed an airborne platform called the EZ-Rocket to

test the most successful of its engine designs (see the

“Liquid Engines - XCOR Aerospace” entry in the

“Enabled Technologies” section). The EZ-Rocket is

powered by two engines, each capable of 1,779 newtons (400 pounds-force) of thrust, and is piloted by

veteran test pilot Dick Rutan. 

By demonstrating the reusability, efficiency,

and safety of its engines, XCOR expects to gather

enough data and experience to pursue its follow-on

suborbital vehicle project. The vehicle, called Xerus,

will be designed to carry one commercial pilot and

one passenger. XCOR’s philosophy is to take one

step at a time toward suborbital, and perhaps later

orbital, launch operations.

XCOR hopes to provide suborbital flights on

Xerus for about $10,000 per passenger and may

develop a “stretched” version capable of taking two

passengers at a time. XCOR expects to build Xerus

within 18 months of securing $3 million and expects

to offer commercial flights three years later.55

X PRIZE® Contenders

In the spirit of the early

20th-century aviation prizes,

such as the Orteig Prize that

Charles Lindbergh won for

crossing the Atlantic in 1927,

the X PRIZE® Foundation was

established in 1995 as an educational, non-profit corporation

dedicated to inspiring private,

entrepreneurial advancements

in space travel. The X PRIZE®

is being offered to help speed

development of space vehicle

concepts that will reduce the cost of access to space

and to allow human spaceflight to become routine.

The St. Louis-based X PRIZE® Foundation is

offering a $10-million prize to the first team that

launches a vehicle capable of carrying three people

(or one person and ballast for two others) on a suborbital trajectory to a 100-kilometer (62-mile) altitude

and repeats the flight within two weeks in the same

vehicle. The X PRIZE® is fully funded through

January 1, 2005.

Vehicle: Xerus

Developer: XCOR Aerospace

First launch: To be determined

Number of stages: 1

Payload performance: To be determined

Possible launch sites: To be determined

Targeted market: Suborbital space tourism

Xerus

X PRIZE® Trophy
The X PRIZE® competition currently has more

than 20 entrants from six countries proposing a variety of different RLV concepts (see Table 2 for a complete list). Most of the commercial vehicles under

development for the X PRIZE® competition are

uniquely designed for suborbital space tourism operations carrying three passengers. These designs use a

variety of takeoff, landing, and design concepts.

In 2002 two new teams joined the roster of 

X PRIZE® registered teams. The first, Armadillo

Aerospace of Mesquite, Texas, is led by John

Carmack, the developer of several popular computer

games. The Armadillo team has successfully developed, tested, and flown its own hydrogen peroxide

mono- and bi-propellant engines on vehicles capable

of carrying one person. The team also flight-tested

their “tube rocket” in 2002. The second new X PRIZE®

team is the Aeronautical and Cosmonautics Romanian

Association led by Dimitru Popescu. The team has

constructed a half-scale technology demonstrator of

their vehicle design.

In May 2002 Pablo de León & Associates of

Buenos Aires, Argentina, performed a second drop

test of a capsule design. For this test, the capsule was

dropped from a height of 29,261 meters (96,000 feet)

and carried Global Positioning System receivers,

basic telemetry transmitters, external thermocouples,

accelerometers, and two video cameras.

The Advent Launch Services team has erected 

a 12-meter (40-foot) propulsion system (tanks and

engine) in a rice field near Houston, Texas, and has

conducted cryogenic tank tests. Hot-fire engine tests

are scheduled but have been delayed due to problems

with propellant delivery.

The Canadian Arrow team, from London,

Ontario, Canada, performed a successful hot-fire test

of a single injector cup in July 2002. A rocket engine

test facility to handle a full-scale V-2 engine 253,549

newton (57,000 pounds-force) thrust was completed

in October. Plans for a full-scale engine test in

October were delayed due to problems with hardware

delivery. In November, Canadian Arrow announced

its worldwide search for three astronauts to fly in 

X PRIZE® competition flights.

Starchaser Industries, Ltd., of Cheshire,

England, successfully fired a 12,259-newton- (2,756-

pound-force-) thrust hybrid rocket engine and a

4,906-newton- (1,103-pound-force-) thrust LOX/

kerosene rocket engine. The team also conducted

two successful rocket launches investigating thermal

conditions its X PRIZE® vehicle will encounter. The

rockets carried nose cone temperature sensing equipment. Team leader Steve Bennett also continued his

pilot training by attending the Gagarin Cosmonaut

training Centre at Star City near Moscow during the

last week of October.

Advent, Canadian Arrow, and Starchaser have

publicly announced plans to make X PRIZE® competition launches sometime in 2003.56

More Commercial RLV Concepts

Several other companies and entrepreneurs

are developing RLVs designed to serve both suborbital and orbital markets. Table 3 lists these organizations and their respective vehicle concepts. These

efforts are not contenders for the X PRIZE®.

2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Reusable Launch Vehicles

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 25

Typical X PRIZE® Trajectory
Reusable Launch Vehicles 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

26 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Table 2: X PRIZE® Contenders

Vehicle Team – Leader - Location Launch System and Mission Description 

Advent Advent Launch Services – Jim 

Akkerman - Houston, TX 

Cylinder-shaped glider powered by LOX/methane rocket engines. The 

vehicle will launch vertically from water and land horizontally at the launch 

site. Hardware has been built and tested. 

Orizont Aeronautics and Cosmonautics 

Romanian Association – Dimitru 

Popescu –Valcea, Romania 

Cylinder-shaped vehicle of standard rocket design with vertical launch 

plan. Hardware has been built and tested. 

Black 

Armadillo 

Armadillo Aerospace - John 

Carmack - Mesquite, TX 

Development work has focused on mono- and bi-propellant hydrogen 

peroxide engines. Hardware has been built and tested. 

Ascender Bristol Spaceplanes, Ltd. - David 

Ashford - Bristol, England, UK 

RLV powered by two conventional jet engines and a liquid-fueled rocket 

engine. The vehicle will take off horizontally and land horizontally. 

Hardware has been built and tested. 

Canadian 

Arrow 

Canadian Arrow – Geoff Sheerin, 

London, Ontario, Canada 

Stretched, two-stage version of the V-2 rocket. It launches vertically and 

performs a parachute, water landing of the booster and passenger stages. 

Hardware has been built and tested. 

Cosmopolis 

– XXI 

(C-21) 

Suborbital Corp. - Sergey 

Kostenko - Moscow, Russia 

Space plane carried to take-off altitude on the back of an M55-X carrier 

aircraft. The vehicle ejects the solid rocket motor after burn-out and glides 

to a horizontal landing. Hardware has been built and tested.

Wild Fire The da Vinci Project – Brian 

Feeney, Toronto, Ontario, 

Canada 

Air-launched, LOX/kerosene rocket deployed from a large helium balloon. 

Recovery system features a high-drag reentry ballute and a Global 

Positioning System-guided parafoil. Hardware has been built and tested. 

Gauchito Pablo De León and Associates – 

Pablo de León – Buenos Aires, 

Argentina 

Single-stage vehicle that will launch vertically. The first stage booster and 

the passenger capsule return to Earth using parachutes. Hardware has 

been built and tested. 

The Space 

Tourist 

Discraft Corporation - John 

Bloomer - Portland, OR 

Disc-shaped vehicle powered by air-breathing “blastwave-pulse jets.” The 

vehicle will take off and land horizontally.

Exo-Clipper Earth Space Transportation 

Systems – William Good – 

Highlands Ranch, CO 

Prototype aerospace plane that has an air-breathing configuration for 

suborbital ballistic flight. The vehicle will takeoff and land horizontally.

Green Arrow Flight Exploration - Graham 

Dorrington - London, England, 

UK 

Cylinder-shaped rocket using liquid-fueled rocket engines. The vehicle will 

launch vertically and land vertically using parachutes and air bags.

Aurora Fundamental Technology 

Systems – Jim Toole and Ray 

Nielsen – Orlando, FL 

Horizontal takeoff and landing double-delta-winged RLV powered by a 

single kerosene and hydrogen peroxide engine capable of being throttled.

(Name not 

disclosed) 

Kelly Space and Technology – 

Mike Kelly - San Bernardino, CA 

Air-launched, lifting body vehicle that is taken to altitude by a tow aircraft. 

The vehicle will perform an unpowered horizontal landing. Hardware has 

been built and tested. 

Kitten Kittyhawk Technologies – 

Douglas Drummond - Oroville, 

WA 

Methane- and LOX-powered spaceplane that takes off and lands from a 

conventional runway.

Cosmos 

Mariner 

Lone Star Space Access 

Corporation - Norm LaFave - 

Houston, TX 

RLV powered by two air-breathing engines and one rocket engine. The 

vehicle will launch and land horizontally.

Lucky Seven Mickey Badgero & Associates - 

Mickey Badgero - Bath, MI 

Cone-shaped vehicle powered by rocket engines. The vehicle will launch 

vertically and land using a parafoil.

SabreRocket PanAero, Inc. – Len Cormier – 

Fairfax, VA 

Modified Sabre Jet with seven small LOX/Kerosene engines. The vehicle 

will perform a horizontal takeoff and powered, horizontal landing.

XP Pioneer Rocketplane – Mitchell 

Burnside Clapp – Solvang, CA 

Powered by both air-breathing jet engines and LOX/kerosene rocket 

engines. XP will takeoff horizontally and perform a powered, horizontal 

landing. 

(Name not 

disclosed) 

Scaled Composites - Burt Rutan 

- Mojave, CA 

Two-stage vehicle consisting of a turbo-fan-powered carrier aircraft and a 

rocket-powered second stage. Hardware has been built and tested.

Thunderbird Starchaser Foundation - Steve 

Bennett - Cheshire, England, UK

Traditional, multi-stage rocket using solid booster and liquid-fueled rocket 

engines. The vehicle will launch vertically and make a ballistic, guided--

parachute landing. Hardware has been built and tested.

MICHELLEB TGV Rockets – Kent Ewing - 

Bethesda, MD 

MICHELLE-B will launch vertically, perform a straight-up, straight-down 

flight trajectory, and perform a powered, vertical landing.
2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Reusable Launch Vehicles

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 27

Program Developer Vehicle Type

Bladerunner Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Horizontally-launched orbital vehicle

Hyperion Applied Astronautics Horizontally-launched suborbital/orbital vehicle

Millennium Express Third Millennium Aerospace Horizontally-launched orbital TSTO vehicle

Neptune Interorbital Systems Corporation Sea-launched orbital vehicle

Pogo Olson Horizontally-launched orbital vehicle

SC-1 Space Clipper International Vertically-launched suborbital vehicle developed by spin-off from Universal Space 

Lines

SC-2 Space Clipper International Vertically-launched orbital vehicle developed by spin-off from Universal Space 

Lines

Space Cruiser Vela Technology Development Horizontally-launched suborbital vehicle specifically designed to ferry passengers

SpaceCub Burkhead Vertically-launched suborbital vehicle

Starbooster Starcraft Boosters, Inc. Vertically-launched suborbital vehicle

Star-Raker Star-Raker Associates Horizontally-launched orbital vehicle

Swiftlaunch University of California at Davis Horizontally-launched orbital vehicle

The ET Scenario Formation Vertically-launched orbital vehicle

XPV Canyon Space Team Horizontally-launched suborbital vehicle

(unnamed) SpaceDev Suborbital 

Table 3: Summary of More RLV Concepts
Reusable Launch Vehicles 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

28 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation
There are a number of efforts underway to develop

new propulsion technologies for launch vehicles,

including expendable launch vehicles (ELV) and

reusable launch vehicles (RLV). These efforts

include government research projects as well as

engines and motors being developed by companies

for their own launch vehicles and for sale to other

companies. Many companies are attempting to build

considerably less complex and potentially less

expensive rocket engines. Some of these designs use

room-temperature propellants instead of cryogenics,

while others use pressure-fed engines instead of turbopumps. The gains achieved in simplifying the engines,

however, may be offset by reduced performance. 

In addition to the technologies listed below, 

a number of launch vehicle technologies are being

developed as part of National Aeronautics and

Space Administration’s (NASA) Space Launch

Initiative (SLI). While these technologies are being

developed for use on future RLVs, some may have

applications on other vehicles as well. Table 4 summarizes some of these technologies.

Air-Breathing Engines - NASA

NASA’s Integrated System Test of an Airbreathing Rocket (ISTAR) program is an effort to

develop the technology required for a rocket-based

combined cycle engine that could be used on future

RLVs. Such an engine will initially accelerate to

Mach 2 using rocket propulsion, then switch to an

air-breathing mode to fly to beyond Mach 10 

before reverting to conventional rocket mode to

complete the ascent to orbit. An air-breathing

engine has the potential to be more efficient than

conventional liquid-propellant rocket motors and

will also reduce the amount of oxidizer the vehicle

will have to carry.

The ISTAR program is currently developing a

ground test engine to demonstrate the technologies

of a rocket-based combined cycle engine. The

engine, dubbed ARGO, passed its first major systems requirements review in July 2002, three

months ahead of schedule. Conceptual system

design and subsystem testing was completed in late

2002, with ground tests of the engine scheduled to

begin in 2006. NASA eventually plans to flight-test

an engine based on the ARGO design, possibly as

part of the agency’s Hyper-X program (see below).57

Hybrid Rocket Motors - SpaceDev, Inc.

In 1998 SpaceDev, Inc.,

of Poway, California, acquired

exclusive rights to the intellectual property of the American

Rocket Company, which had

developed hybrid rocket motor

systems in the 1980s.

SpaceDev is currently developing a series of small hybrid

motors, using hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene

rubber or polymethyl methacrylate (Plexiglas) as

solid fuel and storable nitrous oxide as a gaseous oxidizer. SpaceDev completed tests in August 2001 of a

small hybrid rocket motor that is designed for use in

the company’s Maneuver and Transfer Vehicle, an

upper stage that can move small spacecraft, such as

secondary payloads on larger launch vehicles, from

geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) to low Earth

orbit (LEO) or geosynchronous orbit (GEO). In May

2002 the Air Force Research Lab awarded SpaceDev

a contract to develop a hybrid propulsion module to

deploy small payloads from the Space Shuttle.58 The

company has also proposed developing larger hybrid

motors that could be used on crewed suborbital

RLVs, such as X PRIZE® vehicles.59

Hypersonic Engine Design - NASA

NASA’s Hyper-X program is designed to study

and improve air-breathing hypersonic engine technologies. Three different vehicle designs, designated

X-43A, B, and C, are planned to conduct a variety of

tests of hypersonic vehicle design. In an X-43A

flight, the 3.7-meter- (12-foot-) long vehicle is accelerated to Mach 10 by the first stage of an Orbital

Sciences Corporation Pegasus XL launch vehicle and

is then separated from the booster for independent

flight at high speed. The X-43A program involves

three flights in an effort to

understand intake and

combustion chamber airflow patterns. The first 

X-43A flight, on June 2,

2001, failed due to an

anomaly in the Pegasus

2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Reusable Launch Vehicles

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 29

Enabling Technologies

X-43A

Hybrid Rocket Test
XL booster stage. The second X-43A test flight is tentatively planned for mid-2003.60

The X-43A will be followed by the X-43C, a

4.9-meter- (16-foot-) long vehicle that will test a different scramjet engine design. The X-43C will use

three Ground Demonstrator Engine-1 engines developed by Pratt & Whitney for the U.S. Air Force’s

HyTech project, reaching speeds of Mach 5 to 7 for

up to ten minutes. Like the X-43A, the vehicle will

use a rocket booster stage to accelerate to speeds

where the scramjet can function. The first X-43C

flight is scheduled for 2008. The last Hyper-X vehicle, the X-43B, will test a rocket- or turbine-based

combined-cycle engine to accelerate to hypersonic

speeds.61 The first flight of the 12.2-meter- (40-foot-)

long X-43B is planned for between 2010 and 2012.62

Linear Aerospike Engine - Rocketdyne

Propulsion & Power

Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power, a division

of The Boeing Company in Canoga Park,

California, developed the XRS-2200 linear aerospike engine for the X-33 program. Aerospike

engines offer significant efficiency advantages over

fixed-nozzle-geometry engine designs. The engine

provides up to a 909,305-newton (204,420-poundforce) thrust at sea level, using liquid hydrogen and

liquid oxygen as propellants. One XRS-2200

engine was tested at NASA’s Stennis Space Center

between December 1999 and May 2000, accumulating over 1,500 seconds of firing time during 

14 tests. A single dual-engine test took place at

Stennis in February 2001 before the X-33 program

ended. Three additional dual-engine tests, funded

by SLI, took place in

July and August 2001.

Those firings were made

to test electromechanical

actuators, designed to

regulate propellant flow

in the engine, which

could be used in future

engine designs.63

Liquid Engines - Interorbital Systems

Corporation

Interorbital Systems, based in Mojave,

California, is currently developing a liquid-propellant, pressure-fed engine for use in its planned

sounding rocket and its proposed RLV, Neptune.

The engine uses hypergolic propellants, inhibited

white-fuming nitric acid and furfuryl alcohol. The

current engine design produces a 3,000-newton

(675-pound-force) thrust and has a nominal burn

time of 50 seconds. The company has completed

static and flight tests of the engine.

Interorbital is using four of its new engines in

its Research Series X-2 (RSX-2) sounding rocket.

A test bed for the company’s two-stage orbital vehicles, the RSX-2 rocket can launch 2.25 kilograms

(5 pounds) on a suborbital trajectory to 200 kilometers (125 miles), or 11 kilograms (25 pounds) to 97

kilometers (60 miles). The company anticipates the

first launch of the RSX-2 in 2003 from the Pacific

island nation of Tonga. The company plans to use

larger versions of the engine in the Neptune RLV.64

Liquid Engines - Microcosm, Inc.

Microcosm is developing liquid-propellant

rocket engines for its Scorpius series of ELVs (see

the ELV section for a description of Scorpius). The

company has built a pressure-fed, ablatively-cooled,

22,250-newton (5,000-pound-force) engine using

liquid oxygen and jet fuel as propellants. This

engine was successfully tested on the company’s

SR-XM sounding rocket in March 2001. The

engine will also be used as the sustainer engine for

the Sprite Mini-Lift orbital vehicle. A larger version, an 89,000-newton (20,000-pound-force)

engine, is under development. This engine will be

used on the booster pods of the Sprite Mini-Lift.

Liquid Engines - Rocket Propulsion

Engineering Company

Rocket Propulsion Engineering Company is

developing a series of liquid-propellant engines for

use in its suborbital and orbital launch vehicles. The

engines use hydrogen peroxide and kerosene as

propellants, directly injecting the hydrogen peroxide into the engine rather than using catalyst beds,

as in other engines that use hydrogen peroxide. This

allows the use of less-expensive, lower-purity sources

of hydrogen peroxide that will contaminate catalyst

beds. The company has demonstrated this technology

with its M1-B test engine, which generates a 1,780-

newton (400-pound-force) thrust.

The company is currently developing two

larger engines. The R6 engine, capable of a 26,700-

Reusable Launch Vehicles 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

30 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

XRS-2200
newton (6,000-pound-force) thrust, will be pressure

fed and ablatively cooled. The engine will be used

on the company’s SV-1 suborbital vehicle under

development.65 The R40 engine will use a simple

turbopump powered by an open-cycle, fuel-rich gas

generator to feed propellants into the engine, rather

than use the pressure-fed design of the R6. The R40

will provide up to a 178,000-newton (40,000-poundforce) thrust. The engine will be used on the company’s SV-2 suborbital vehicle and the first stage of

its LV-1 orbital vehicle.

In May 2002 the Missile Defense Agency

awarded Rocket Propulsion Engineering Company

a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract. The six-month SBIR Phase 1 contract covered

the preliminary engineering design of a storable liquid propellant engine that uses hydrogen peroxide

and NavFuel, a fuel developed by the Naval Air

Warfare Center. The engine is primarily designed for

use in an upper stage of the Navy Standard Missile

for air and missile defense applications, as well as

future suborbital and orbital vehicles. Construction

of a working prototype engine will be carried out

under a future, Phase 2 contract.66

Liquid Engines - Space Exploration

Technologies Corporation

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation

(Space X) of El Segundo, California, is developing

two new liquid-propellant engines for use on its

Falcon launch vehicle. One engine, designed for the

first stage of the Falcon, will be a 267,000-newton

(60,000-pound-force) engine, operating on a gas

generator cycle. The Falcon’s second stage will use

a 33,300-newton (7,500-pound-force) pressure-fed

engine based on the engine used in the descent

stage of the Apollo Lunar Module. Both engines

will use liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants.

Space X is planning to conduct the first test firings

of the engines in early 2003.

Liquid Engines - XCOR Aerospace

XCORAerospace, located in Mojave, California,

specializes in the development of engines for use on

launch vehicles and spacecraft. The company has

developed and extensively tested three different liquid-propellant engines. XCOR’s largest engine, designated XR4AE, is a 1,780-newton (400-pound-force),

pressure-fed, regeneratively-cooled, liquid-oxygen

and alcohol engine. Four such engines have been

built and, combined, have been fired 536 times for

over 6,250 seconds. The engines have also been flown

on EZ-Rocket, a modified Long-EZ aircraft fitted with

two of the engines. EZ-Rocket has completed 15 successful flight tests since July 2001, including two

flights at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s

AirVenture 2002 air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in

July 2002. A key technology is XCOR’s proprietary

ignition system.

XCOR has built two smaller engines. A 67-

newton (15-pound-force) engine, designated XR2P1,

using nitrous oxide and ethane as propellants, was

initially built to test the design of proposed larger

engines. This engine has made more than 700 firings,

with a cumulative burn time of 82.6 minutes. XCOR’s

XR3B4 regeneratively-cooled engine is capable of

a 220-newton (50-pound-force) thrust using nitrous

oxide and isopropyl alcohol as propellants. This

engine has completed 216 firings with a cumulative

burn time of over 812 seconds.67 XCOR designed

this engine for use as a maneuvering thruster on

spacecraft. In April 2002 XCOR acquired selected

intellectual property assets of the former Rotary

Rocket Company, including a 22,250-newton

(5,000-pound-force) liquid oxygen and kerosene

engine developed and tested by the company as

well as hydrogen peroxide engine technology.68

XCOR plans to use the technology for the development of larger engines for its Xerus suborbital RLV

and other projects.

Liquid Engines and Thrusters - 

NASA/SLI Contractors

As part of SLI, NASA has supported development of several new engine designs. One area of

research includes studies of engines that use liquid

oxygen and kerosene propellants that can generate

approximately 4.5 million newtons (1 million

2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Reusable Launch Vehicles

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 31

XCOR EZ-Rocket
pounds-force) of thrust. A second area of research

has focused on liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen

engines than can generate at least 2.67 million newtons (600,000 pounds-force) of thrust. Both engine

designs will be reusable and designed for the first

and second stages, respectively, of an RLV. In addition, SLI has funded development of reaction control thruster systems that use liquid oxygen and 

liquid hydrogen propellants; these thrusters will be

used to maneuver spacecraft in orbit. Table 4 lists

some of the technologies being developed for SLI.

Propellant Production - Andrews Space

& Technology, Inc.

Andrews Space & Technology, Inc., of Seattle,

Washington, has proposed a propulsion system that

will generate liquid oxygen propellant from the

atmosphere. The “Alchemist” Air Collection and

Enrichment System (ACES) will take high-pressure

air from a turbofan jet engine and liquefy it by passing it through a heat exchanger cooled by liquid

nitrogen and/or liquid hydrogen. Liquid oxygen will

then be separated out and stored in propellant tanks

for use by a liquid hydrogen-liquid oxygen rocket

engine. This will allow a horizontal-takeoff launch

vehicle to leave the ground without any oxidizer,

reducing its takeoff weight. The company has proposed ACES in conjunction with its own two-stageto-orbit (TSTO) RLV design as well as for use in

other horizontal-takeoff launch vehicles.69

Andrews Space & Technology carried out initial studies of the ACES concept, in cooperation

with Pratt & Whitney, using internal funds and a

NASA SBIR contract. A detailed feasibility and risk

analysis study has been carried out under a NASA

SLI contract.

RLV Technologies/X-37 and X-40A -

NASA/The Boeing Company 

NASA and Boeing are currently developing the

X-37 reusable aerospace vehicle under a cooperative

agreement signed in July 1999. Based on the design

of a proposed Air Force Space Maneuver Vehicle, the

X-37 will serve as a test bed for 40 airframe, propulsion, and operations technologies intended to reduce

the cost of space transportation operations. X-37

flights will permit the testing of a wide variety of

experiments and technologies, including advanced

guidance, navigation, and control systems; thermal

protection systems; and high-temperature structures.

In addition, the X-37 has a 2.1-by-1.2-meter (7-by4-foot) experiment bay, which will allow the testing

of additional technologies in the future.70

In November 2002 NASA awarded Boeing

Phantom Works of Seal Beach, California, a $301-

million contract to complete work on the X-37. The

contract covers a progressive series of atmospheric

approach and landing tests planned for mid-2004.

The tests will be followed by an orbital flight on

either the Space Shuttle or an ELV in mid-2006.71

The X-40A is a concurrent test program

designed to explore the low-speed atmospheric flight

dynamics of the X-37 design. Originally developed 

as a prototype of the Air Force’s proposed Space

Maneuver Vehicle, the X-40A is an 85-percent scale

atmospheric precursor to the X-37. It uses the X-37’s

guidance, navigation, and control software and simulates its aerodynamic performance. It also uses the 

X-37’s flight operations control center. The X-40A

completed a program of seven successful flights at

NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in May

2001. During these flights, the uncrewed X-40A was

released from a CH-47 Chinook helicopter at 4,570

meters (15,000 feet) and autonomously guided itself

to the target runway and landed in a fashion similar 

to a conventional aircraft.72

Reusable Launch Vehicles 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

32 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

X-40A

X-37
2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Reusable Launch Vehicles

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 33

Name Company Type Description Status

Co-optimized 

Booster for 

Reusable 

Applications 

(COBRA)

Pratt & 

WhitneyAerojet 

Propulsion 

Associates

Cryogenic 

reusable 

engine

A liquid oxygen-liquid hydrogen engine 

capable of generating 2.67 million 

newtons (600,000 pounds-force) with a 

100-mission lifetime.

COBRA passed a milestone review 

in June 2002.73 SLI funding for 

COBRA was terminated in 

September 2002.

Reaction Control 

Engine

TRW Cryogenic 

orbital 

maneuvering 

engine

A liquid-oxygen liquid-hydrogen thruster 

system designed to maneuver spacecraft 

in orbit, providing between 111 and 4,450 

newtons (25 and 1,000 pounds-force).

Hot-fire tests of the engine started 

in March 2002 at NASA's Marshall 

Space Flight Center.74

RS-83 engine Boeing 

Rocketdyne

Cryogenic 

reusable 

engine

A liquid oxygen-liquid hydrogen engine 

capable of generating 2.94 million 

newtons (660,000 pounds-force) with a 

100-mission lifetime.

Hot-fire tests of the RS-83 

preburner, a component that 

powers the engine’s turbopumps, 

started in October 2002 at NASA’s 

Stennis Space Center.75

RS-84 engine Boeing 

Rocketdyne

Hydrocarbon 

reusable 

engine

A liquid-oxygen kerosene reusable engine 

capable of generating 4.68 million 

newtons (1.05 million pounds-force).

Engine currently in the design 

phase.76

TR107 engine TRW Hydrocarbon 

reusable 

engine

A liquid-oxygen kerosene reusable engine 

capable of generating 4.46 million 

newtons (1 million pounds-force).

Engine currently in the design 

phase.77

Table 4: SLI Technologies
Reusable Launch Vehicles 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

34 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation
2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Spaceports

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 35

Launch and reentry sites—often referred to as

“spaceports”—are the nation’s gateways to and from

space. Although their individual capabilities vary,

these facilities may house launch pads and runways

as well as the infrastructure, equipment, and fuels

needed to process launch vehicles and their payloads

prior to launch. The first such facilities in the United

States emerged in the 1940s, when the federal government began to build and operate space launch

ranges and bases to meet a variety of national needs.

While U.S. military and civil government agencies

were the original and still are the primary users and

operators of these facilities, commercial payload 

customers have become frequent users of federal

spaceports as well. 

Federal facilities are not the only portals to and

from space. Indeed, the commercial dimension of

U.S. space activity is evident not only in the numbers

of commercially-procured launches but also in the

presence of non-federal launch sites supplementing

federally operated sites. The Federal Aviation

Administration Associate Administrator for

Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/AST) has

licensed the operations of four non-federal launch

sites. These spaceports have served both commercial

and government payload owners.

This section describes both the federal and

non-federal spaceports capable of supporting launch

and landing activities that currently exist in the

United States. A sub-section detailing state and private proposals for future spaceports with launch

and landing capabilities is also included. Table 5

shows which states have non-federal, federal, and

proposed spaceports. Tables 6, 7, and 8, located at

the end of this section, summarize each spaceport’s

major characteristics. 

Spaceports

In October 2000, the states of California and Florida convened a space summit meeting in Washington, D.C. Representatives

from all states with interests in spaceports attended the meeting and decided to form a coalition in order to create a mechanism for influencing space policy and commercial space development, including the development of spaceports. Fourteen

states established the NCSS on February 5, 2001. The NCSS vision is for the United States to develop a strong, internationally competitive, commercial space launch industry utilizing the infrastructure of spaceports and space operations nationwide.

The members aim to accomplish this goal by improving existing infrastructure and promoting the development of new spaceports in the Coalition states.

The year 2002 found the National Coalition of Spaceport States (NCSS) aggressively pursuing activities true to its Vision

Statement: “The vision of NCSS is that the U.S. will develop a strong, internationally competitive national commercial space

launch industry capable of reliable, economical, and safe access-to-space, utilizing a nationwide infrastructure of spaceports

and space operations.”

Throughout 2002, NCSS has been an active proponent of increasing the development of space commerce, the necessary

foundation of a robust access-to-space industry. Similarly, it has been a regular contributor to both the Advanced Range

Technology Working Group and the Advanced Spaceport Technology Working Group, two initiatives aimed at creating

roadmaps for the development of the nation’s space transportation infrastructure in the years to come. Finally, NCSS has been

formulating input regarding the review of national space policies currently being conducted by the Bush Administration. As a

representative of the interests of the various operational and emerging space access facilities throughout the country, NCSS

will remain actively involved in the various issues which have the potential to affect its membership. 

Voting member states of the NCSS must have submitted a formal request for membership from their governors’ offices and

must have a formal plan to develop a physical spaceport with at least either a launch or landing site. States without spaceport plans or without plans approved by their governments may become associate, non-voting members. The founding member states of NCSS are: Alabama, Alaska, California, Florida, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas,

Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. Nebraska joined the NCSS as an associate member in the fourth quarter of 2001.

Table 5: Spaceport Summary by State

State Non-federal Federal Proposed

Alabama

Alaska

California

Florida

Montana

Nevada

New Mexico

Oklahoma

South Dakota

Texas

Utah

Virginia

Washington

Wisconsin

National Coalition of Spaceport States78,79
Federal Spaceports

Since the first licensed commercial orbital

launch in 1989, the federal ranges have continually

supported commercial launch activity. The importance of commercial launch is evident in the changes

taking place at federal launch sites. Launch pads

have been developed with commercial, federal, and

state government support at the two major federal

sites for U.S. orbital launches for the latest generation of the Delta and Atlas launch vehicles, including

the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELV).

Cape Canaveral Spaceport (consisting of Cape

Canaveral Air Force Station [CCAFS] and the

National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s

[NASA] Kennedy Space Center [KSC])80 hosts pads

for Delta 4 and Atlas 5, while a pad under construction at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) will soon

be able to accommodate Delta 4. 

Recognizing that the ranges are aging, the U.S.

government is engaged in range modernization. This

effort includes the ongoing Range Standardization

and Automation program, a key effort to modernize

and upgrade the Eastern Range at CCAFS and portions of the Western Range at VAFB. The Air Force,

the Department of Commerce, and the FAA signed 

a Memorandum of Agreement in January 2002 that

established a process for collecting commercial sector range support and modernization requirements,

communicating them to the Air Force, and considering them in the existing Air Force requirements

process.

Cape Canaveral Spaceport

Cape Canaveral Spaceport (CCAFS and KSC)

is located on the “Florida Space Coast” at Cape

Canaveral and also encompasses the launch complex

owned by the Florida Space Authority (FSA) (see the

FSA description below). The Cape Canaveral area

has endured several name changes and an expanding

list of tenants. In 1948 the Banana River Naval Air

Station was transferred to the Air Force for use as 

a joint service missile range. NASA’s Launch

Operations Center was renamed for President

Kennedy in 1963. Air Force Space Command redesignated Cape Canaveral Air Station as CCAFS in

Spaceports 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

36 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Key:

Non-federal Spaceport

U.S. Federal Spaceport

Proposed Non-federal Spaceport

California Spaceport

Vandenberg AFB

Cape Canaveral Spaceport

(KSC/CCAFS)

Florida Space Authority 

Spaceport 

Virginia Space

Flight Center

Wallops Flight

Facility

Edwards AFB

Mojave Airport 

Civilian Test Flight Center White Sands Missile Range

Southwest Regional Spaceport

Montana Spaceport

Texas Spaceport

(3 proposed sites)

Nevada Test Site Utah Spaceport

·

*

Kodiak Launch Complex •

Oklahoma Spaceport

Wisconsin Spaceport

Spaceport Alabama

South Dakota Spaceport

Spaceport Washington

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

• •

•

•

•

·

·

·

·

*

U.S. Spaceport Locations
February 2000. The Cape developed rapidly during

the space race of the 1950s and 1960s supporting

Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, as well as

ballistic missile testing.

Today, CCAFS encompasses six active launch

pads for Delta, Atlas, Titan and Athena launch vehicles, while the Space Shuttle operates from two pads

at KSC. NASA oversees launch operations for the

Space Shuttle and checkout of its payloads, while the

45th Space Wing, headquartered at nearby Patrick

AFB, conducts launch operations and provides

range support for military, civil, and commercial

launches.

The 45th Space Wing’s Range Operations

Control Center provides flight safety, weather, scheduling, and instrumentation control, along with target

designation information and tracking data to and

from inter- and intra-range sensors in real or nearreal time for missile and space launch support.

Range tracking capabilities extend over the Atlantic

Ocean as far north as Canada and as far southeast as

Africa. There is currently one active launch complex

(LC), LC-40, for remaining Titan 4 vehicles launching from the East Coast. In 1999, Lockheed Martin

began to work on new facilities for Atlas 5 at LC-41.

FSA has entered into an arrangement for ownership

of LC-41 and support integration facilities and is

leasing them to Lockheed Martin. Refurbishment

and construction of the launch pad, gantry, and support facilities was completed in 2001. The first Atlas

5 launch from LC-41 occurred on August 21, 2002. 

Boeing has a similar agreement with FSA for

lease of the Delta 4 Horizontal Integration Facility.

LC-37 has been inactive since the 1960s when it

served as the site for eight Saturn 1 and Saturn 1B

launches. The launch tower and launch pad at LC-37

were completed in 2001. The first Delta 4 launch

occurred on November 20, 2002.

KSC maintains its own launch complex, LC-39.

LC-39’s pads A and B were originally built to support

the Apollo program. After the end of the lunar landing program in 1972, they served to launch Skylab,

Apollo-Soyuz, and now the Space Shuttle. LC-39

launch and processing facilities are all located on

Merritt Island, between the Florida mainland and Cape

Canaveral. LC-39 support facilities include the Vehicle

Assembly Building, the Launch Control Center, the

Mobile Launcher Platform, the Crawler Transporter,

theOrbiterProcessingFacilities,thePayload Processing

Facility, and the Shuttle Landing Facility. KSC also

2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Spaceports

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 37

Spaceport: Cape Canaveral Spaceport/CCAFS

Operating authority: U.S. Air Force

Year of first orbital launch: 1957

Total orbital launches: 561

Vehicles served: Atlas 1, Atlas 2, Atlas 3, Atlas 5, Blue

Scout, Delta 2, Delta 3, Delta 4, Juno, Jupiter, Pegasus,

Saturn, Thor-Able, Titan 2, Titan 3, Titan 4, Vanguard

Orbits served: Low Earth orbit (LEO), medium Earth

orbit (MEO), geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO), Earth

escape trajectory, elliptical orbit (ELI)

Spaceport: Cape Canaveral Spaceport/KSC

Operating authority: NASA

Year of first orbital launch: 1967

Total orbital launches: 132

Vehicles served : Pegasus, Saturn, Shuttle

Orbits served: LEO, MEO, GEO, Earth escape trajectory,

ELI
provides five hangars for non-hazardous payload processing, the Shuttle Payload Integration Facility, the

SatelliteAssemblyBuilding, and an explosive safe area.

In 2001 KSC began construction of a new

office building near the Vertical Assembly Building.

The building is expected to be completed by 2003.

Also in 2001 KSC broke ground for the new Space

Experiment Research and Processing Laboratory that

will replace CCAFS’s Hangar L for International

Space Station (ISS) experiment processing and constructed a road leading into a 1.6-square-kilometer

(400-acre) area that will be developed as an international space research park. The state of Florida provided $26 million for the development of the Space

Experiment Research and Processing Laboratory 

and another $4 million for road construction in the

facility’s vicinity.

Edwards Air Force Base

Located in Mojave, California, Edwards Air

Force Base (AFB) was the original landing site for

the Space Shuttle. The first two Shuttle flights landed on Rogers Dry Lake, a natural hard-pack riverbed

measuring about 114 square kilometers (44 square

miles). Unfortunately, the normally dry lakebed was

flooded in 1982, rendering the site unavailable for

the third Shuttle landing (the Space Shuttle landed 

at White Sands, New Mexico instead). As a result, 

a 4.5-kilometer (2.8-mile) runway was built at

Edwards AFB to be used for future Shuttle landings.

Today, NASA prefers to use KSC as the primary

landing site for the Space Shuttle and uses Edwards

AFB as a back-up site.

Before its cancellation, X-33 was to use

Edwards AFB as a test site. In December 1998

NASA completed construction of a launch site at

Edwards AFB. The site consisted of an X-33-specific launch pad, a control center to be used for launch

monitoring and mission control, and a movable

hangar, where the vehicle was to be housed and serviced in a horizontal position. The site was equipped

with hydrogen and nitrogen gas tanks, as well as

liquid-hydrogen and oxygen tanks capable of holding more than 1.1 million liters (291,000 gallons) 

of cryogenic materials. A water tower with a height

of 76 meters (250 feet) could supply nearly 1 million liters (265,000 gallons) of water to the concrete

flame trench during launch. X-33 telemetry and

tracking functions will have been performed using

existing Air Force and NASA facilities at Edwards

AFB and Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia. With 

X-33’s cancellation, the government and associated

contractors redistributed the components of the 

X-33 infrastructure for SLI projects.

The federal government is investing several

million dollars into refurbishing and modernizing

two generic rocket test stands that were formerly

used by the Air Force to test a range of launch vehicles. One is a component test stand and the other is

an engine test stand. Plans are also being developed

to continue refurbishing additional rocket stands in

the future for purposes of rocket testing.

Edwards AFB, along with NASA’s co-located,

premier aeronautical flight research facility, Dryden

Flight Research Center, hosts other NASA reusable

X-vehicle demonstration programs. In 2001, NASA

used a Pegasus XL launch vehicle to conduct a drop

test of the X-43A demonstrator. The Air Force used

a helicopter to conduct seven successful X-40A

flight tests during 2001. NASA will fund X-37 testing at Edwards AFB in 2004. 

Vandenberg Air Force Base

In 1941 the Army activated this site in Lompoc,

California, as Camp Cook.81 In 1957 Camp Cook 

was transferred to the Air Force, and in 1958 it was

renamed Vandenberg AFB (VAFB) in honor of

General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, the Air Force’s second

Chief of Staff. VAFB is currently the headquarters of

the 30th Space Wing, which conducts space and missile launches and operates the Western Range. Range

tracking capabilities extend into the Pacific Ocean as

Spaceports 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

38 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Edwards Air Force Base
2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Spaceports

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 39

far west as the island of Kwajalein, with boundaries

to the north as far as Alaska and to the south near

Central America.

VAFB infrastructure used for space launches

includes a 4,500-meter (15,000-foot) runway, boat

dock, launch facilities, payload processing facilities,

tracking radar, optical tracking and telemetry facilities, and control centers. The 401-square-kilometer

(155-square-mile) base also houses 53 government

organizations and 49 contractor companies in 1,843

buildings. VAFB hosts a variety of federal agencies

and attracts commercial aerospace companies and

activities, including the California Spaceport effort

(see the California Spaceport description below).

VAFB partnered with Boeing to develop

launch infrastructure for the Delta 4 EELV. Space

Launch Complex (SLC)-6 has been converted from

a Space Shuttle launch pad into an operational

facility for the Delta 4. The SLC-6 refurbishment

has been completed, and tests of the new infrastructure will occur in February 2003. The new launch

table, which arrived at VAFB in October 2001,

weighs 650,000 kilograms (1.4 million pounds) and

stands 7 meters (23 feet) high, 14 meters (46 feet)

wide, and 26 meters (85 feet) long. Other construction at SLC-6 included enlarging the existing

mobile service tower and completing the construction of the West Coast Horizontal Integration

Facility, where the Delta 4 will be assembled.

VAFB is also upgrading its range instrumentation and control centers to support the space launch

industry. These upgrades are scheduled to be completed by 2010. In addition, the state of California is

looking into developing an alternate range operations

control center to demonstrate Unmanned Aerial

Vehicle wideband communication down-link technology. In 2001 VAFB opened a customer support office

to provide a centralized interface for customers of

launch and base services.

Current launch vehicles using VAFB include

Atlas 2, Delta 2, Titan 2, Titan 4, Taurus, Minotaur,

and Pegasus XL families. NASA operates SLC-2,

from which Boeing Delta 2 vehicles are launched.

Orbital Sciences’ Taurus is launched from 576-E.

Pegasus XL vehicles are processed at Orbital Sciences’

facility at VAFB and then flown to various worldwide

launch areas. A new commercial launch vehicle,

Falcon, being developed by Space Exploration

Technologies, plans to launch from VAFB.

Two reusable launch vehicle (RLV) developers, Kelly Space and Technology and Pioneer

Rocketplane, have contacted VAFB to inquire about

launch services. Both have expressed interest in

using VAFB facilities for testing purposes and possible launch activities once the testing sequence is

completed.

At this time, VAFB has active partnerships

with nine private organizations in which VAFB provides launch property and launch services and the

private companies use the government facilities to

do their own payload and booster processing work.

VAFB houses three commercially-owned facilities/

complexes: Boeing’s Horizontal Integration Facility,

Spaceport Systems International’s (SSI) California

Spaceport, and Astrotech’s Payload Processing

Facility.

Wallops Flight Facility

The National Advisory Committee for

Aeronautics, the predecessor of NASA, established

an aeronautical and rocket test range at Wallops

Island, Virginia in 1945.82,83 Since then, over 14,000

Spaceport: VAFB

Operating authority: U.S. Air Force

Year of first orbital launch: 1959

Total orbital launches: 624

Vehicles served: Athena, Atlas 1, Atlas 2, Delta 2, Delta

4, Minotaur, Pegasus, Scout, Taurus, Thor, Thor-Able,

Titan 2, Titan 3, Titan 4

Orbits served: Polar
Spaceports 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

40 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

small rocket launches have taken place from the site,

which is currently operated by NASA’s Goddard

Space Flight Center. The first orbital launch occurred

in 1961, when a Scout launch vehicle deployed

Explorer 9 to study atmospheric density. There have

been 29 orbital flight attempts from Wallops,

including six Pegasus launches, the most recent in

1999. The retired Scout made its last orbital launch

from Wallops in 1985.

In April 1996 the Air Force designated Wallops

as a launch site for converted Minuteman 2 missiles

under the Orbital/Suborbital Program (along with

Kodiak Launch Complex and the California

Spaceport), so possible future vehicle users include

the Minotaur and other vehicles developed under that

program.

Although Wallops has not attempted any

orbital flights (beyond support of the air-launched

Pegasus) since the Conestoga failure in 1995, NASA

is committed to maintaining the existing infrastructure that will be used by both orbital and suborbital

missions for government and commercial users.

Three blockhouses and numerous payload and vehicle preparation facilities are operational. Wallops

launches about 10 to 20 suborbital vehicles per 

year. The facility also supports northerly launches

from KSC and CCAFS as well as worldwide orbital

and suborbital launches with transportable range

instrumentation and safety equipment. Wallops

equipment was used to support the first orbital

launch from Kodiak, Alaska. The Virginia Space

Flight Center (VSFC) is co-located with Wallops.

Wallops also contains several research facilities, 

a research airport, machine shops, and a center 

that consolidates the control of launch range and

research airport operations. Wallops assets also support aeronautical testing and U.S. Navy testing.

In March 2002 $6.8 million in launch range

modernization projects were initiated, including

upgrades in range clearance radars, vehicle-tracking

systems, launch data acquisition and management

systems, and range control center interfaces. Along

with the launch range modernization projects, $3.2

million in support facilities improvement projects

were started, including a new, 1,115-square-meter

(12,000-square-foot) payload processing and integration facility; a high-security area in the range

control center; upgrades to the existing hazardous

vehicle processing facility; and a cryogenic fueling

capability for small- to mid-sized vehicles. All of

these projects are scheduled for completion prior 

to October 2003.

White Sands Missile Range

Situated 26 kilometers (16 miles) northeast of

Las Cruces, New Mexico, White Sands Missile

Range, which includes the NASA White Sands

Flight Test Center, covers 8,100 square kilometers

(3,127 square miles). It is operated by the U.S. Army

and is used mainly for launching sounding rockets.

White Sands also supports Ballistic Missile Defense

Organization (now the Missile Defense Agency)

flight-testing and is used as a test center for rocket

engines and experimental spacecraft. Facilities at

Spaceport: Wallops Flight Facility

Operating authority: NASA

Year of first orbital launch: 1960

Total orbital launches: 29

Vehicles served: Conestoga, Pegasus, Scout

Orbits served: LEO

White Sands Missile Range
White Sands include seven engine test stands and

precision cleaning facilities including a class-100

clean room for spacecraft parts.

White Sands is also the Space Shuttle’s tertiary

landing site after Edwards AFB and KSC. This landing site consists of two 11-kilometer- (6.8-mile-) long,

gypsum-sand runways.

Non-federal Spaceports with 

FAA/AST Licenses

While the majority of licensed launch activity

still occurs at U.S. federal ranges, much future launch

and landing activity may originate from private or

state-operated spaceports. In order for a non-federal

entity to operate a launch or landing site in the United

States, it is necessary to obtain a license from the federal government through FAA/AST. To date,

FAA/AST has licensed the operations of four nonfederal launch sites, all of which are described in this

subsection. Three of these are co-located with federal

launch sites, including the California Spaceport at

VAFB, the spaceport facilities operated by FSA at

Cape Canaveral, and VSFC at Wallops Flight Facility.

The fourth licensed, non-federal spaceport is Kodiak

Launch Complex in Alaska. The first orbital launch

from an FAA/AST-licensed site occurred on 

January 6, 1998, when a Lockheed Martin Athena 2

carrying NASA’s Lunar Prospector spacecraft successfully lifted off from FSA’s LC-46.

California Spaceport

On September 19, 1996, the California

Spaceport became the first launch site licensed by

FAA/AST.84 In June 2001, FAA/AST renewed the

spaceport’s license for another five years. The

California Spaceport offers commercial launch

services and is operated and managed by Spaceport

Systems International (SSI), a limited partnership

between ITT Federal Service Corporation and

California Commercial Spaceport, Inc. Co-located

with VAFB on the central California coast, SSI signed

a 25-year lease in 1995 for 0.44 square kilometers

(0.17 square miles) of land. Located at 34o North

latitude, the California Spaceport can support a

variety of mission profiles to low polar orbit inclinations, with possible launch azimuths ranging

from 220o to 150o.

Initial construction at California Spaceport’s

Commercial Launch Facility began in 1995 and was

completed in 1999. The design concept is based on 

a “building block” approach. Power and communications cabling is routed underground to provide a “flat

pad” with the flexibility to accommodate a variety of

different launch systems. Although the facility currently is configured to support solid propellant vehicles, plans are in place to equip it with commodities

required by liquid fueled boosters. The current configuration consists of the following infrastructure: pad

deck, support equipment building, launch equipment

vault, launch duct and stand, communications equipment, and launch control room. Final configuration

awaits customer requirements. When fully developed, the Commercial Launch Facility will be able 

to accommodate a wide variety of launch vehicles

including the Minuteman-based Minotaur, the 

Delta 3, and Castor 120-based vehicles.

Originally, the focus of the California

Spaceport’s payload processing services was on the

refurbishment of the Payload Preparation Room. This

room, located near SLC-6, is a clean room facility

designed to process three Space Shuttle payloads

simultaneously. It is now leased and operated by the

California Spaceport as the Integrated Processing

Facility. Today, payload-processing activities occur

on a regular basis. The facility supports booster processing and administrative activities. It is capable of

2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Spaceports

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 41

Spaceport: California Spaceport

Operating authority: SSI/California Spaceport

Year of original FAA license: 1996

Year of first orbital launch: 2000

Total orbital launches: 2

Vehicles served: Delta 3, Minotaur, Castor 120-based

vehicles

Orbits served: Polar
handling all customer payload-processing needs. This

includes Delta 2- and Delta 4-class payloads as well

as smaller payloads as required.

The spaceport receives limited financial support from the state in the form of grants. In 2000 it

received about $180,000 to upgrade the breech load

doors in the Integrated Processing Facility transfer

tower. The modification was completed in March

2001, and the new transfer tower is now capable of

accommodating 18-meter (60-foot) payloads. This

will enable SSI to process and encapsulate satellites

in support of the EELV program. In May 2001 SSI

received approximately $167,000 to upgrade the

satellite command and telemetry systems. There are

plans to upgrade the launch site infrastructure for liquid vehicles and to build a new launch control center

in the future.

The state of California has also provided

some support for California Spaceport business. In

2001 legislation was passed to remove the “sunset”

clause on tax exemptions for commercial satellites

and boosters launched from VAFB, including

California Spaceport.

The California Spaceport provides payload

processing and orbital launch support services for

both commercial and government users. The

California Spaceport provided payload-processing

services for three NASA satellites: Landsat 7, 1995;

TIMED/Jason, December 2001; and Aqua, May

2002. The California Spaceport’s first orbital launch

was that of JAWSAT, a joint project of the Air Force

Academy and Weber State University, on a Minotaur

launch vehicle in July 2000. To date, the site has

launched two Minotaur launch vehicles. 

In 2002 SSI won a ten-year Air Force satelliteprocessing contract for Delta 4-class four- and fivemeter payloads. This contract complements an existing NASA ten-year payload-processing contract for

Delta 2-class, three-meter payloads. SSI is working

with several launch providers for National Missile

Defense support.

The National Reconnaissance Office has contracted with SSI to provide space vehicle processing until 2011. This includes Delta 4-class payload

processing support for multiple missions to be

launched from VAFB. NASA and commercial

Delta-class payloads are also processed for launch

on the Delta 2, launched from SLC-2W on VAFB.

Kodiak Launch Complex

In 2000 the Alaska Aerospace Development

Corporation (AADC) completed the $40-million,

two-year construction of the Kodiak Launch

Complex at Narrow Cape on Kodiak Island,

Alaska.85 This launch complex is the first new U.S.

launch site since the 1960s and is the only non-federal spaceport not co-located with a federal launch

site. In 1991 the Alaska state legislature created the

AADC as a public company to develop aerospacerelated economic, technical, and educational opportunities for the state of Alaska. Owned by the state

of Alaska and operated by the AADC, the Kodiak

Launch Complex has received funding from the Air

Force, Army, NASA, the state of Alaska, and private firms. The commercial spaceport on Kodiak

Island is located on a 12.4-square-kilometer (4.8-

square-mile) site about 419 kilometers (260 miles)

south of Anchorage and 40 kilometers (25 miles)

southwest of the city of Kodiak. The launch site

itself encompasses a nearly 5-kilometer (3-mile)

arch around Launch Pad 1.

Kodiak facilities currently include the Launch

Control Center; the Payload Processing Facility,

which includes a class-100,000 cleanroom, an airlock, and a processing bay; the Integration and

Spaceports 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

42 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Spaceport: Kodiak Launch Complex

Operating authority: AADC

Year of original FAA license: 1998

Year of first orbital launch: 2001

Total orbital launches: 1

Vehicles served: Athena 1, Athena 2, Castor 120-based

vehicles

Orbits served: Polar
2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Spaceports

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 43

Processing Facility/Spacecraft Assemblies Transfer

Facility; and the Launch Pad and Service Structure.

These facilities are designed such that they allow the

transfer of vehicles and payloads from processing to

launch without exposure to the outside environment.

This protects both the vehicles and those working

on them from exterior conditions, allowing allweather launch operations. There are no permanent

range assets currently on site; however, there are

plans to build a range safety system that is expected

to be operational sometime in 2003. The system 

will consist of Global Positioning System tracking, 

S-band telemetry, and command destruction.

The AADC is also supporting the development

of ground station facilities near Fairbanks, Alaska, in

cooperation with several commercial remote-sensing

companies. The high-latitude location makes the

Fairbanks site favorable for polar-orbiting satellites,

which typically pass above Fairbanks several times

daily. NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility currently provides mobile tracking equipment.

Located at 57° North latitude, Kodiak provides

a wide launch azimuth and unobstructed downrange

flight path. Kodiak’s markets are military launches

and government and commercial telecommunications, remote sensing, and space science payloads

weighing up to 990 kilograms (2,200 pounds).

These can be delivered into low Earth orbit (LEO),

polar, and Molniya orbits. Kodiak is designed to

launch Castor 120-based vehicles, including the

Athena 1 and 2, and has been used on a number of

occasions to launch military suborbital rockets.

Kodiak has conducted a total of six launches

to date. The first launch from Kodiak was that of a

suborbital vehicle, Ait-1, built by Orbital Sciences

for the Air Force in November 1998. A second 

Ait launch followed in September 1999. A joint

NASA-Lockheed Martin Astronautics mission on 

an Athena 1 became the first orbital launch from

Kodiak on September 29, 2001. In April 2002

Orbital Sciences launched a suborbital rocket, the

Quick Reaction Launch Vehicle (QRLV-2), for the

U.S. Air Force. The mission of the launch was missile defense flight testing.86

Spaceport Operated by 

Florida Space Authority

Established by the state of Florida as the

Spaceport Florida Authority in 1989, the Florida

Space Authority (FSA), renamed as such in 2001, 

is empowered like an airport authority to serve the

launch industry and is responsible for statewide

space-related economic and academic development.87

FSA owns and operates space transportation-related

facilities on about 0.29 square kilometers (0.11

square miles) of land at CCAFS owned by the 

Air Force. FAA/AST first issued the state organization a license for spaceport operations on May 22,

1997, and renewed the license in 2002 for another

five years.

Under an arrangement between the federal government and FSA, underutilized facilities at CCAFS

have been conveyed to FSA for improvement and use

by commercial entities on a dual-use, non-interference basis with Air Force programs. FSA’s efforts

Spaceport: LC-46

Operating authority: FSA

Year of original FAA license: 1997

Year of first orbital launch: 1998

Total orbital launches: 2 (1 lunar)

Vehicles served: Athena

Orbits served: LEO, Earth escape trajectory
have concentrated on CCAFS’s LC-46, an old Trident

missile launch site. LC-46 has been modified to

accommodate small commercial launch vehicles as

well as the Navy’s Trident. The philosophy guiding

the development of LC-46 was to build a public

transportation infrastructure for several competing

launch systems rather than to tailor a facility for a

single launch system. As a result, LC-46 can currently accommodate the Athena 1 and Athena 2. In the

future, LC-46 could accommodate vehicles carrying

payloads in excess of 1,800 kilograms (4,000 pounds)

to LEO.

Currently, LC-46 is configured for Castor 120

or similar solid-motor-based vehicles. Its infrastructure can support launch vehicles with a maximum

height of 36 meters (120 feet) and diameters ranging

from 1 to 3 meters (3 to 10 feet). An Athena 2 carrying NASA’s Lunar Prospector was the first vehicle

launched into orbit from the spaceport in January

1998. This was followed by launch of the ROCSAT

satellite in January of 1999.

Thus far FSA has invested over $500 million 

in new space industry development. It has upgraded

LC-46, built an RLV support complex (adjacent to the

Shuttle landing site on KSC grounds), and developed

a new space operations support complex. It has also

financed the Atlas 5 launch facilities at CCAFS,

financed and constructed the Delta 4 Horizontal

Integration Facility for Boeing, and provided financing for a Titan 4 storage and processing facility.

As part of an overall effort to expand the utilization of the Cape for research and development

and educational activities, FSA is in the process of

obtaining a five-year license from the Air Force to

use LC-47. The complex will be upgraded to support

a significant number of suborbital and small LEO

launches carrying academic payloads for research

and training purposes.

Virginia Space Flight Center

The Virginia Space Flight Center (VSFC)

traces its beginnings to the Center for Commercial

Space Infrastructure, created in 1992 at Virginia’s

Old Dominion University to establish commercial

space research and operations facilities in the state.88

The Center for Commercial Space Infrastructure

worked with NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on

Wallops Island, Virginia, to develop commercial

launch infrastructure at Wallops. In 1995 the organization became the Virginia Commercial Space Flight

Authority (VCSFA), a political subdivision of the

Commonwealth of Virginia, focused on promoting

growth of aerospace business while developing a

commercial launch capability in Virginia.

On December 19, 1997, FAA/AST issued

VCSFA a launch site operator’s license for the

VSFC. This license was renewed in December 2002

for another five years. The VSFC is designed to provide “one-stop shopping” for space launch facilities

and services for commercial, government and scientific and academic users. In 1997, VCSFA signed

with NASA a Reimbursement Space Act Agreement

to use the Wallops center’s facilities in support of

commercial launches. This 30-year agreement

allows VCSFA access to NASA’s payload integration, launch operations, and monitoring facilities on a

non-interference, cost-reimbursement basis. Both

NASA and VSFC personnel work together to provide

launch services, providing little, if any, distinction

in the areas of responsibility for each.

VCSFA has a partnership agreement with

DynSpace Corporation, a subsidiary of DynCorp, of

Reston, Virginia, to operate the spaceport. Funded

by a contract with the state and through any spaceport revenues, DynSpace operates the VSFC for the

Spaceports 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

44 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Spaceport: Virginia Space Flight Center

Operating authority: VCSFA

Year of original FAA license: 1997

Year of first orbital launch: N/A

Total orbital launches: 0

Vehicles served: Athena 1, Athena 2, Minotaur, Taurus

Orbits served: LEO
2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Spaceports

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 45

VCSFA. The state maintains ownership of the

spaceport’s assets. The federal government owns 90

percent of the spaceport’s land and makes it available under a long-term use agreement. The VCSFA

receives the majority of its operational funding

from state sources. The remainder of support is

from revenues generated through its operations. 

VCSFAowns two launch pads at Wallops.

Launch pad 0-B, its first launch pad, was designed as

a “universal launch pad,” capable of supporting a

variety of small- and medium-sized expendable

launch vehicles (ELV) with gross liftoff weights of up

to 225,000 kilograms (496,000 pounds) that can place

up to 4,500 kilograms (9,900 pounds) into LEO. Phase 1

construction of launch pad 0-B, including a 1,750-

square-meter (18,830-square-foot) pad made of reinforced concrete, above-ground flame deflector, and

launch mount, took place between March and

December 1998. In subsequent phases, a 60-meter

(200-foot) service tower and 68,000-kilogram

(150,000-pound) bridge crane will be added. The 

site also includes a complete command, control, and

communications interface with the launch range. 

No launches have yet been conducted from launch

pad 0-B.

In March 2000 VSFC acquired a second pad

at Wallops, launch pad 0-A. EER Systems of

Seabrook, Maryland, built this site in 1994 for its

Conestoga launch vehicle. The Conestoga made one

launch from launch pad 0-A in October 1995 but

failed to place the METEOR microgravity payload

in orbit. VSFC started refurbishing launch pad 0-A

and its 25-meter (82-foot) service tower in June

2000. Launch pad 0-A will support launches of

small ELVs with gross liftoff weights of up to

90,000 kilograms (198,000 pounds) and that are

capable of placing up to 1,350 kilograms (3,000

pounds) into LEO. Completion of the refurbishing

project is pending future business opportunities.

From its location on the Atlantic coast, VSFC

can accommodate a wide range of orbital inclinations and launch azimuths. Optimal orbital inclinations accessible from the site are between 38 

and 60 degrees; other inclinations, including sunsynchronous orbits (SSO), can be reached through

in-flight maneuvers. Launch pad 0-A can support 

a number of small solid-propellant boosters, including the Athena 1, Minotaur, and Taurus. Launch 

pad 0-B can support larger vehicles, including the

Athena 2. VSFC also has an interest in supporting

future RLVs, possibly using its launch pads or three

runways at Wallops Flight Facility.

VSFC also provides an extensive array of

services including the provision of supplies and

consumables to support launch operations, facility

scheduling, maintenance, inspection to ensure timely

and safe ground processing and launch operations, and

coordination with NASA on behalf of its customers.

VSFC is in the process of constructing a $4-million

logistics and processing facility at NASA Wallops,

capable of handling payloads of up to 5,700 kilograms

(12,600 pounds). The facility, which includes high

bay and clean room environments, is scheduled for

completion in October 2003.

Proposed Non-federal Spaceports

Several states are planning to develop spaceports offering a range of launch and landing services. Two common characteristics of many of the

proposed spaceports are inland geography—a contrast to the coastal location of all present-day U.S.

spaceports—as well as interest in hosting RLV

operations. Descriptions of specific efforts to establish spaceports, which are in various stages of

development, are presented below.

Gulf Coast Regional Spaceport

The Gulf Coast Regional Spaceport is one of

three independent Texas spaceport proposals being

supported by the Texas Aerospace Commission.89

The Gulf Coast Regional Spaceport Development

Corporation has proposed constructing a spaceport 

in Brazoria County, Texas, 80 kilometers (50 miles)

south of Houston. The spaceport may support medium- and heavy-lift commercial RLVs to LEO, MEO,

and GEO. The Corporation has identified undeveloped land currently used for agriculture as a potential

site and is working with the private owner of the land

to acquire the property. 

Local governments invested nearly $300,000 in

the project between 1999 and 2001, primarily for site

selection work. In February 2002 the state approved

the Gulf Coast Regional Spaceport board’s access to

the first installment of $500,000 in state grant money.90

The initial $150,000 paid contractor fees for an indepth safety analysis of the site based on the use of

different types of launch systems. The development

plan will determine what infrastructure is necessary.
Mojave Airport Civilian Flight Test Center

The East Kern County, California, government

established the Mojave Airport in 1935 in Mojave,

California.91,92 The original facility was equipped

with taxiways and basic support infrastructure for

general aviation. A few years later, the airport was

taken over by the federal government and converted

into a Marine Corps auxiliary air station. In 1972 a

special district, the East Kern Airport District, was

created by law, and the Mojave Airport and its

Civilian Flight Test Center were built.

East Kern Airport owns and operates the facility, and the local government is in the process of creating a development plan for the 13.4 square kilometers (5.1 square miles) on which the Civilian Flight

Test Center is located. An environmental impact

assessment began in 2002 and is expected to take at

least two years to complete.93 Upon completion of

the environmental impact assessment, an official

spaceport development plan will be developed. The

spaceport will conduct payload processing, payload

integration, testing, and launch services for horizontal launches of RLVs.

The Civilian Flight Test Center consists of several test stands, three runways, an air control tower, 

a roton test stand, engineering facilities, and a high

bay building. In 2002 the facility increased the 

number of test stands available from four to seven.

Between $250,000 and $300,000 of local government

and private funding was invested in construction of

the new test stands. East Kern Airport District is planning for the construction of a new taxiway.Funding

for the project, approximately $4.5 million, is expected to become available in June 2003. Construction

of the new taxiway is scheduled for completion in

late 2003.

In the last two years, XCOR Aerospace has been

performing flight tests at this facility and recently had

multiple successful tests with the EZ-Rocket. XCOR

Aerospace had three Rocketplane test flights up to

3,657 meters (12,000 feet) in 2002. In addition, rocket engines of up to 133,000 newtons (30,000 poundsforce) of thrust were tested at the site in 2002, and

larger engines are expected to be tested at the site by

the end of 2003.

Between 1998 and 2000, Rotary Rocket

Company used a small portion of the Mojave site

for manufacturing and testing. During those years,

Rotary built its Rotor Test Stand and a complex that

included an engineering “workshop and campus”

and a high bay. The infrastructure that was constructed by Rotary still exists, although the company is

selling its facilities.

Montana Spaceport

The state of Montana established the Montana

Space Development Authority under the state’s

Department of Commerce to coordinate and lead

Montana’s commercial space efforts.94 Montana’s

space strategy involves creating the organizational

and educational infrastructure necessary to support

state space activities and to ultimately construct a

licensable commercial spaceport.

The state of Montana has $20 million in aerospace bonding (state general obligation bonds)

available to finance activities directly related to

aerospace research and development or the development of spaceport infrastructure. Commercial

proposals for incentive financing will be evaluated

in terms of the number of jobs created and tax revenues generated by the project. Companies will not

have to repay the state for any bonding covered by

increased tax revenues.

Montana had proposed to launch RLVs from

two sites: Malmstrom AFB in Great Falls, Montana,

and a former military base in Glasgow, Montana. In

2000 the spaceport worked with officials from both

Lockheed Martin’s VentureStarTM program and

Rotary Rocket to bring commercial space launches

to the state. The Montana Space Development

Authority had begun consultations with FAA/AST

to apply for a commercial spaceport license for the

Great Falls site; however, since the VentureStarTM

program has been cancelled, the licensing process

Spaceports 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

46 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Mojave Airport Civilian Flight Test Center
2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Spaceports

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 47

has been put on hold. The future of the spaceport is

uncertain, and the state of Montana is not actively

pursuing development of the spaceport at this time.

Nevada Test Site

The Nevada Test Site, located 100 kilometers

(62 miles) northwest of Las Vegas, is a remote, highly secure facility covered by restricted airspace.95

Kistler Aerospace Corporation selected it as a spaceport for the K-1 RLV in addition to their Woomera,

Australia, facility in order to increase scheduling

flexibility and to widen the range of launch azimuths

available to customers. Although it does not have

any launch infrastructure, the Nevada Test Site has

existing basic infrastructure such as a paved runway,

water, roads, and power that can be used to support

launch and landing activities.

The Nevada Test Site Development Corporation

obtained an economic development use permit in

1997 from the U.S. Department of Energy. Shortly

thereafter, the Corporation issued a sub-permit allowing Kistler to operate a launch and recovery operation

at the Nevada Test Site.

Oklahoma Spaceport

The state of Oklahoma is interested in developing a broader space industrial base and a spaceport.96 In 2000 the Oklahoma state legislature passed

an economic incentive law offering tax credits, tax

exemptions, and accelerated depreciation rates for

commercial spaceport-related activities. A year earlier, the legislature passed a law creating the

Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority

(OSIDA). Consisting of five full-time employees

and directed by seven governor-appointed board

members, OSIDA promotes the development of

spaceport facilities, space exploration, space education, and space-related industries in Oklahoma.

Currently, the state of Oklahoma provides operating

costs for OSIDA, but the organization expects to be

financially independent in five years.

The former Clinton-Sherman AFB at Burns

Flat is one of the sites proposed for a future spaceport in Oklahoma. Existing infrastructure includes a

4,100-meter (13,500-foot) runway, a large maintenance and repair hangar, utilities, a rail spur, and

12.4 square kilometers (4.8 square miles) of open

land. In 2002 OSIDA entered into an agreement

with a private corporation to conduct an environmental impact study. The study, expected to continue through December of 2003, is a critical step

towards receiving a launch site operator license

from FAA/AST.

The city of Clinton conveyed ownership of

the spaceport site to OSIDA in 2002. As an inland

site, the Oklahoma Spaceport will be limited to

launch and support services for RLVs and may

become operational in late 2006 or early 2007.

The state of Oklahoma offers several incentives, valued at over $128 million over ten years, to

attract space companies to the state. For example, a

jobs program provides quarterly cash payments of

up to five percent of new taxable payroll directly to

qualifying companies for up to ten years. Also, the

state will provide a $15-million tax credit to one

corporation that meets specific qualifying criteria,

including equity capitalization of $10 million and

the creation of at least 100 Oklahoma jobs. Some

organizations also may qualify for other state tax

credits, tax refunds, tax exemptions and training

incentives. Besides state funding, NASA issued

$241,000 to OSIDA for space-related educational

grants to be used throughout the state.

OSIDA has signed Memoranda of

Understanding with several companies for use of the

Burns Flat site. In September 2001 OSIDA also

signed a Memorandum of Understanding with

FAA/AST to define each of their roles in the development and licensing of the commercial spaceport.

South Dakota Spaceport

The state of South Dakota has identified a site

in the western part of the state, near Ellsworth AFB,

where it could construct a spaceport.97 While South

Burns Flat, Proposed Site of the Oklahoma Spaceport
Spaceports 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

48 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Dakota may own a portion of the proposed spaceport site, the spaceport’s operating entity has not

been determined. Most of South Dakota’s planning

to date has come in response to NASA and private

expressions of interest in a South Dakota spaceport.

All planning to date has involved a mix of local and

state officials and members of the National Guard.

No infrastructure exists, and the size of the site and

any future infrastructure will depend on government or commercial needs.

South Texas Spaceport

The South Texas Spaceport is a joint undertaking of the South Texas Spaceport Consortium and

the Willacy County Development Corporation for

Spaceport Facilities.98 The Spaceport Consortium is

a 13-county regional coalition of local governments,

economic development organizations, and higher

education institutions that was created in 1998 to

pursue commercial space launch operations. The

Willacy County Develop-ment Corporation was created in 2001 to manage the spaceport site evaluation

and other technical and administrative elements of

the project under a Texas Aerospace Commission

grant. In February 2002 the Texas Aerospace

Commission awarded a $500,000 contract to the

South Texas Spaceport.

Willacy County is investigating the feasibility

of developing and operating a launch facility that

could serve commercial launch operators as well as

sounding rocket programs and other activities associated with current and proposed programs at educational institutions. The proposed spaceport site is a

40-square-kilometer (15.4-square-mile) undeveloped

portion of Willacy County adjacent to the Laguna

Madre and the Gulf of Mexico approximately 150

kilometers (93 miles) south of Corpus Christi and

65 kilometers (40 miles) north of Brownsville. The

site initially may support the suborbital and small

orbital launch systems currently in service or being

developed for service in the near future, with a longterm focus on RLVs. Due to its extreme southern

location, the site would become the U.S. site capable of supporting the largest payload launches to

geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO). 

To date, no infrastructure has been built, and

no launch activity has taken place at the proposed

South Texas Spaceport. Initial planning will focus

on the infrastructure needed to support activities of

launch operators with current development programs. These operators have expressed a desire to

use the site for ground-launched sounding rockets

and deployment of balloon-supported platforms that

will carry suborbital rockets to altitudes from which

they can achieve orbit. Initial construction will likely be limited to a hangar, ramp area, and small payload preparation facilities.

Southwest Regional Spaceport

The state of New Mexico proposes to construct and operate the Southwest Regional Spaceport

for use by private companies and government organizations conducting space activities and operations.99

The proposed site of the spaceport is a 70-squarekilometer (27-square-mile) parcel of open land in

the south central part of the state. The spaceport proposal is to support all classes of RLVs serving equatorial, polar, and ISS orbits, providing support for

payload integration, launch, and landing. The facility will be able to accommodate vertical launches,

vertical landings, and horizontal landings and will

include two launch complexes, a landing strip, an

aviation complex, a payload assembly complex,

support facilities, and a cryogenic plant.

The Southwest Regional Spaceport is supported by the state through the New Mexico Office for

Space Commercialization, part of the New Mexico

Economic Development Department. In 2001 the

state legislature approved $1.5 million in funds for

fiscal years 2002 through 2004 for spaceport development, including environmental studies and land

acquisition; this funding, however, is contingent 

on the state receiving a written commitment from 

a private company or government organization to

host an RLV program. The state has provided 

Proposed South Dakota Spaceport Site

Near Ellsworth AFB
2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Spaceports

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 49

several other incentives for the spaceport, including

gross receipt deductions, industrial revenue bonds,

and investment and job training credits.

In 2002 the state of New Mexico and the 

U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range signed a

Memorandum of Agreement supporting the development of the Southwest Regional Spaceport. The

agreement enables the spaceport to share resources

and integrate launch scheduling and operations with

the Army test range.100

Spaceport Alabama

Spaceport Alabama is a proposed next-generation, full-service departure and return facility intended to support orbital and suborbital space access

vehicles. Currently being developed by the

Aerospace Development Center of Alabama, the

Spaceport Alabama proposal will be presented to 

the Alabama Commission on Aerospace Science 

and Industry and the Alabama legislature for formal

adoption during the 2003 legislative session. Under

the current proposal, the legislature will establish 

the Spaceport Alabama Authority, which will oversee

the development of Spaceport Alabama.

A site under consideration for a spaceport is 

in Baldwin County, across the bay from the city of

Mobile. This site is seen as ideal for supporting both

government and commercial customers. It allows for

targeting next-generation RLVs for access to LEO,

medium Earth orbit (MEO), and GEO.

Under the current spaceport development plan,

a spaceport facility could become operational within

10 years depending on market demand. The current

plan calls for the establishment of a “total spaceport

enterprise” concept, consisting of a departure and

return facility, processing and support facilities, full

support infrastructure, a research and development

park, a commerce park, supporting community infrastructure, intermodal connectivity, and other services

and infrastructure necessary for providing a “turn

key” capability in support of space commerce,

research and development, security, and related services. The current plan focuses primarily on RLVs,

though some suborbital ELVs in support of scientific

and academic missions could be possible.101

Spaceport Washington

Spaceport Washington, a public/private partnership, has identified Grant County International

Airport in central Washington, 280 kilometers (174

miles) east of Seattle, as the site of a future spaceport.102 The airport, formerly Larson AFB and now

owned and operated by the Port of Moses Lake, is

used primarily as a testing and training facility.

Spaceport Washington proposes to use Grant

County International Airport for horizontal and vertical takeoffs and horizontal landings of all classes

of RLVs. The airport has a 4,100-meter (13,452-

foot) main runway and a 3,200-meter (10,500-foot)

crosswind runway, and is certified as an emergency-landing site for the Space Shuttle. No additional infrastructure has been planned for the site.

Spaceport Washington has received $350,000 and

staff support from the state of Washington.

Utah Spaceport

In 2001 the state of Utah passed the Utah

Spaceport Authority Act, creating a Utah Spaceport

Authority with the power to develop and regulate

spaceport facilities in the state.103 The Act also created a seven-member advisory board appointed by

the governor to advise the Authority on spaceport

issues. Since the Act was signed into law, the advisory board has been created but no other actions

have been taken.

The Wah Wah Valley Interlocal Cooperation

Entity proposes to construct and operate a commercial launch site utilizing approximately 280 square

kilometers (108 square miles) of Utah state trust

lands located 50 kilometers (31 miles) southwest 

of Milford, Utah. The proposed spaceport’s mission

is to provide a cost-effective launch and recovery

facility for RLVs.

There is no existing or planned infrastructure

at this time. However, the proposed spaceport will

include construction of a new 4,575-meter- (15,000-

foot-) long space vehicle recovery and aircraft runway at an elevation of 1,525 meters (5,000 feet)

above sea level and two space vehicle launch facilities located 2,300 meters (7,550 feet) above sea

level. Additionally, assembly, testing, processing,

and office facilities will be constructed.

The state of Utah appropriated $300,000 to

conduct a spaceport feasibility study and appointed a

Spaceport Advisory Board to research the economic

development opportunities of the X-33 and other

RLVs. The study was put on hold after the cancella-
Spaceports 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

50 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

tion of the X-33 and VentureStarTM programs. No

additional action is being taken at this time.

West Texas Spaceport

The West Texas Spaceport is one of the three

Texas spaceport proposals being supported by the

Texas Aerospace Commission.104 The Pecos

County/West Texas Spaceport Development

Corporation, established in mid-2001, has proposed

the development of a spaceport 29 kilometers (18

miles) southwest of Fort Stockton, Texas. The

spaceport will serve vertical-takeoff and -landing

RLVs, as well as suborbital sounding rockets. The

spaceport will be able to support launches to GEO,

SSO, and International Space Station (ISS) orbits.

Spaceport infrastructure will include a launch site

with a 4,570-meter (15,000-foot) safety radius, an

adjacent recovery zone 4,570 meters (15,000 feet) in

diameter, and payload integration and launch control

facilities. 

In February 2002 the Texas Aerospace

Commission awarded a $500,000 contract to the

West Texas Spaceport. In June 2002 the Air Force

approved the site for various test-launch projects. JP

Aerospace began launching small suborbital rockets

from the site in October 2002.105

Wisconsin Spaceport

On August 29, 2000, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation officially approved the creation of the Wisconsin Spaceport located on Lake

Michigan in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.106,107 The goal of

the spaceport is to support space research and education through suborbital launches for student projects.

The city of Sheboygan owns the spaceport; “Rockets

for Schools,” a program run by Space Explorers,

Inc., and developed by the Aerospace States

Association, runs the student program. In 2002 the

program hosted two launch events during which over

50 student-built rockets were launched. The spaceport began operating approximately four years ago.

While suborbital sounding rocket launches to altitudes of up to 55 kilometers (34 miles) have been

conducted to date, future plans include adding the

capability of orbital launches of RLVs. 

The existing infrastructure includes a vertical

pad for suborbital launches in addition to portable

launch facilities, such as mission control, which 

are erected and disassembled as needed. The pier

from which launches take place was widened and

strengthened during 2002. Also, some existing structures were removed from the property to clear space

for the construction of a proposed mission control

and education center. Plans for developing additional launch infrastructure are uncertain at this time.

The spaceport developers are in the process 

of creating a development plan. Draft legislation is

being reviewed by the Wisconsin Senate for development of a spaceport authority.
2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Spaceports

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 51

Spaceport Location Owner/Operator Launch Infrastructure at Site Current Development Status

California 

Spaceport

Lompoc, 

California

Spaceport Systems 

International

Existing launch pads, runways, 

payload processing facilities, 

telemetry and tracking equipment.

The Integrated Processing 

Facility has an upgraded power 

system, digital control systems, 

secure communication, HVAC 

systems, fuel and oxidized pads 

and fairing encapsulation in Cell 

1. A new 30-ton crane has been 

added to the Transfer Tower as 

well as a new interior blast door. 

The Integrated Processing 

Facility is now fully configured to 

support Delta 2- and Delta 4-

class payloads. Concrete flame 

ducts, communication, electrical, 

and water infrastructure are in 

place.

Kodiak Launch 

Complex

Kodiak Island, 

Alaska

Alaska Aerospace 

Development 

Corporation

Launch control center, payload 

processing facility, and integration 

and processing facility. Limited range 

support infrastructure (uses mobile 

equipment). 

Construction of the launch control 

center, payload processing 

facility, and integration and 

processing facility was completed 

in 2000.

Spaceport owned 

by Florida Space 

Authority

Cape 

Canaveral, 

Florida

Florida Space 

Authority 

One launch complex including a pad 

and a remote control center, a small 

payload preparation facility, and an 

RLV support facility.

Has invested over $200 million to 

upgrade launch sites, build an 

RLV support complex adjacent to 

the Shuttle landing facilities, and 

develop a new space operations 

support complex.

Virginia Space 

Flight Center

Wallops 

Island, Virginia

Virginia Commercial 

Space Flight Authority

Two orbital launch pads, payload 

processing and integration facility, 

vehicle storage and assembly 

buildings, on-site and downrange 

telemetry and tracking, and payload 

recovery capability.

Currently completing $6.6 million 

in launch range improvements. 

Construction of a new $2.4-million 

payload processing and 

integration facility underway.

Spaceport Location Owner/Operator Launch Infrastructure at Site Current Development Status

Cape Canaveral 

Spaceport 

(CCAFS/KSC) 

Cape 

Canaveral, 

Florida 

U.S. Air Force, NASA, 

Florida Space 

Authority 

Telemetry and tracking facilities, jet 

and shuttle capable runways, launch 

pads, hangar, vertical processing 

facilities and assembly building. 

RLV and ELV spaceport is 

operational. 

Edwards AFB Mojave, 

California 

U.S. Air Force Telemetry and tracking facilities, jet 

and shuttle capable runways, Delta 4 

launch pad, operations control center, 

movable hangar, fuel tanks, and 

water tower. 

Site is operational. 

Vandenberg AFB Lompoc, 

California 

U.S. Air Force Launch pads, vehicle assembly and 

processing buildings, payload 

processing facilities, telemetry and 

tracking facilities, control center, 

engineering office space, shuttlecapable runway. 

VAFB has started negotiations 

with several commercial 

companies. Existing infrastructure 

is operational. Upgrades may or 

may not be required depending 

on vehicle requirements. 

Wallops Flight 

Facility 

Wallops 

Island, Virginia 

NASA Telemetry and tracking facilities, 

heavy jet and shuttle-capable 

runway, launch pads, vehicle 

assembly and processing buildings, 

payload processing facilities, range 

control center, blockhouses, large 

aircraft hangers, and user office 

space. 

Wallops Flight Facility has not 

supported any orbital flights since 

the failure of Conestoga in 1995. 

NASA is committed to 

maintaining the existing 

infrastructure. 

White Sands 

Missile Range 

White Sands, 

New Mexico 

U.S. Army Telemetry and tracking facilities, 

runway, engine and propulsion 

testing facilities. 

NASA flight test center is 

operational. RLV-specific 

upgrades will probably be 

required. 

Table 7: Licensed Non-federal Spaceports: Infrastructure and Status

Table 6: Federal Spaceports: Infrastructure and Status
Spaceports 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

52 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Spaceport Location Owner/Operator Launch Infrastructure at Site Current Development Status 

Gulf Coast 

Regional 

Spaceport 

Brazoria 

County, Texas 

To be determined No infrastructure at this time. The final Texas Spaceport site(s) 

has not been selected yet. Three 

sites are being considered at this 

time. 

Mojave Airport 

Civilian Flight Test 

Center 

Mojave, 

California 

East Kern Airport Air control tower, runway, rotor test 

stand, engineering facilities, high bay 

building. 

The infrastructure in place is part 

of a $5.5-million project. 

Montana 

Spaceport 

Great Falls, 

Montana 

Montana Space 

Development 

Authority 

No infrastructure at this time. Inactive at this time. 

Nevada Test Site Nye County, 

Nevada 

Department of 

Energy/Nevada Test 

Site Development 

Corporation 

No launch infrastructure at this time. 

Power and basic facilities available. 

Kistler was issued a sub-permit 

allowing it to operate a launch 

and recovery operation. Nevada 

Test Site Development Corporation is actively promoting the 

site as a spaceport for both RLVs 

and conventional launchers. 

Oklahoma 

Spaceport 

Washita 

County, 

Oklahoma 

Oklahoma Space 

Industry Development 

Authority 

4,115-meter (13,500-foot) runway, a 

5,200-square-meter (56,000-squarefoot) manufacturing facility, a 2,785-

square-meter (30,000-square-foot) 

maintenance and painting hangar, 

and 435 square kilometers (168 

square miles) of land available for 

further construction. 

The Clinton-Sherman AFB at 

Burns Flat was designated as the 

future spaceport. No state money 

has been allocated for 

development yet. 

South Dakota 

Spaceport 

Near Ellsworth 

AFB 

To be determined No infrastructure at this time. All planning to date has involved 

a mix of local and state officials 

and members of the National 

Guard. 

South Texas 

Spaceport 

Willacy 

County, Texas 

To be determined No infrastructure at this time. The final Texas Spaceport site(s) 

has not been selected yet. Three 

sites are being considered at this 

time. 

Southwest 

Regional 

Spaceport 

Upham, New 

Mexico 

New Mexico Office of 

Space 

Commercialization 

No infrastructure at this time. Plans for this site include a 

spaceport central control facility, 

an airfield, a maintenance and 

integration facility, a launch and 

recovery complex, a flight 

operations control center, and a

cryogenic plant. 

Spaceport 

Alabama 

Baldwin 

County, 

Alabama 

To be determined No infrastructure at this time. Open field space with basic 

power, water, and utilities.

Spaceport 

Washington 

Grant County 

International 

Airport, 

Washington 

Port of Moses Lake 4,100-meter (13,452-foot) main 

runway and a 3,200-meter (10,500-

foot) crosswind runway. 

The site is certified as an 

emergency-landing site for the 

Space Shuttle. No additional 

infrastructure has been planned 

for the site. 

Utah Spaceport Wah Wah 

Valley, Utah 

Utah Spaceport 

Authority 

No infrastructure at this time. Plans for the proposed Utah 

Spaceport include a central 

administrative control facility, an 

airfield, maintenance and 

integration facility for payloads 

and spacecraft, launch pads, a 

flight operation control center, 

and a propellant storage facility.

West Texas 

Spaceport 

Pecos County, 

Texas 

To be determined No infrastructure at this time. The final Texas Spaceport site(s) 

has not been selected yet. Three 

sites are being considered at this 

time. 

Wisconsin 

Spaceport 

Sheboygan, 

Wisconsin 

Owner: City of 

Sheboygan; Operator: 

Rockets for Schools 

A vertical pad for suborbital launches 

in addition to portable launch 

facilities, such as mission control. 

Plans for developing additional 

launch infrastructure are 

uncertain at this time. 

Table 8: Proposed Non-federal Spaceports: Infrastructure and Status
2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Endnotes

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 53

1 The orbiter, main engines, and solid rocket boosters are

refurbished and reused, but the external tank is irrecoverable.

2 Although used in a multinational venture, Sea Launch’s

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3 The Air Force has made at least one exception to fly a 

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Endnotes
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54 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

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First Large Reusable Hydrocarbon Rocket Engine,” 5 June

2002.

77 TRW. “TR107 Main Engine” (http://www.trw.com/

marketplace/main/1,,39_1541_415_1367_4781_4787^6^478

7^4787,00.html), accessed 25 November 2002.

78 Interview with National Coalition of Spaceport States, 

21 December 2001.

79 Communication with National Coalition of Spaceport

States, 11 November 2002.

80 A 50-year comprehensive Master Plan for the future development of Cape Canaveral Spaceport was released in 2002.

The Plan was prepared in partnership between NASA, the

Air Force, and Florida Space Authority. Other participants

were the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Canaveral

National Seashore, and Navy Ordinance Test Unit.

81 Survey response from the Customer Support Office, 30th

Space Wing, 12 November 2002.
2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Endnotes

Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation 55

82 Interview with Virginia Commercial Space Flight

Authority, 11 December 2001.

83 Survey response from Wallops Flight Facility, 28 October

2002.

84 Survey response from Spaceport Systems International, 

26 October 2002.

85 Interview with Alaska Aerospace Development

Corporation, 10 December 2001.

86 Space-Launcher.com, Launch Log 2002, 

(www.orbireport.com/log.html), accessed 20 November

2002.

87 Survey response from Florida Space Authority, 

5 November 2002.

88 Survey response from Virginia Commercial Space Flight

Authority, 28 October 2002.

89 Interview with Brazoria County Partnership (representing

Brazoria County, Texas), 14 December 2001.

90 Brazoria County Partnership Spaceport News Release.

“Grant Money Released to Gulf Coast Spaceport,” 1 March

2002.

91 Interview with the Finance Office of the East Kern Airport

District, 14 December 2001.

92 Interview with Mojave Airport Civilian Flight Test Center,

20 November 2002.

93 Interview with Mojave Airport Civilian Flight Test Center,

20 November 2002.

94 Interview with Montana Department of Commerce, 

7 December 2001; Interview with High Plains Development

and Port Authority, Inc., 7 December 2001.

95 Interview with Space Technology Group, 10 December

2001.

96 Survey response from Oklahoma Space Industry

Development Authority, 11 October 2002.

97 Interview with South Dakota Governor’s Office, 

6 December 2001.

98 Survey response from South Texas Spaceport, 22 October

2002.

99 Survey response from New Mexico Office for Space

Commercialization, 25 October 2002.

100 Ramirez, Steve. “WSMR to Cooperate in Commercial

Space Efforts,” Las Cruces Sun-News (http://

www.edd.state.nm.us/SPACE/news.htm), accessed 

24 January 2003.

101 Communication with Alabama Governor’s Advisor on

Aerospace Affairs, 13 December 2002.

102 Interview with Washington Office of Trade and Economic

Development, 12 December 2001.

103 Interview with Utah State Department of Community and

Economic Development, National Business Development

Office, 10 December 2001.

104 Interview with Texas Aerospace Commission (representing West Texas Spaceport), 10 December 2001.

105 Pecos County West Texas Spaceport Development

Corporation. Launching West Texas Into an Exciting New

Millennium, 2002.

106 Interview with Space Explorers, Inc. (representing

Wisconsin), 6 December 2001.

107 Interview with Space Explorers, Inc. (representing

Wisconsin), 21 October 2002.
Endnotes 2003 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts

56 Federal Aviation Administration/Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation