Portugal issues spaceport license to Santa Maria Island
Portugal today issued a spaceport license to the Atlantic Spaceport Consortium (ASC) that wishes to build an orbital spaceport on the island of Santa Maria in the Azores, located about 900 miles west of the mainland.
On 13 August, ASC and the Portuguese Space Agency announced in a joint statement that the consortium had received a licence to operate a launch site on the island. The licence was issued by the country’s Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações (ANACOM), the entity acting as Portugal’s space authority. The licence is valid for five years and does not cover the launch operations themselves, which will be subject to a separate licensing process on a per-launch basis.
ASC has already conducted two demonstration suborbital launches there. In addition, it has signed a deal with the Polish rocket startup SpaceForest for additional suborbital launches.
This location is excellent for orbital launches, though getting rockets to it is an extra cost that will at least initially limit its appeal. Either way, it appears the Portuguese government does not wish to stand in the way of progress, and has been moving fast to clear away the red tape.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Portugal today issued a spaceport license to the Atlantic Spaceport Consortium (ASC) that wishes to build an orbital spaceport on the island of Santa Maria in the Azores, located about 900 miles west of the mainland.
On 13 August, ASC and the Portuguese Space Agency announced in a joint statement that the consortium had received a licence to operate a launch site on the island. The licence was issued by the country’s Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações (ANACOM), the entity acting as Portugal’s space authority. The licence is valid for five years and does not cover the launch operations themselves, which will be subject to a separate licensing process on a per-launch basis.
ASC has already conducted two demonstration suborbital launches there. In addition, it has signed a deal with the Polish rocket startup SpaceForest for additional suborbital launches.
This location is excellent for orbital launches, though getting rockets to it is an extra cost that will at least initially limit its appeal. Either way, it appears the Portuguese government does not wish to stand in the way of progress, and has been moving fast to clear away the red tape.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Looks like a good candidate for mainland recovery of first stages. Or recovery just offshore with barges making a short trip to shore such that fast craft return a booster to the island. Alternately boosters can go back by economical freighter along with other cargo.
Logistics certainly will prove an intrinsic, and ongoing, issue for this launch site. But far less so, one supposes, than those already associated with use of, say, Kourou in French Guiana. This may prove to be one of those situations in which one need not outrun the bear, just the other guy.