Private company and local officials working to establish Arizona landing range for orbital spacecraft
A private group called Space Rising is now in discussions with local officials to establish an Arizona landing range for orbital spacecraft near the city of Sierra Vista.
Space Rising, the private group behind the Blueprint, told ABC15 Mornings Anchor Kaley O’Kelley their group is now working with Sierra Vista Mayor Clea McCaa and Tony Boone, the city’s Director of Tourism, Economic Development and Spaceport, as it forms an Arizona Space Economic Development Coalition. The group says the coalition will include major economic development organizations and communities like Sierra Vista and Yuma. One of its initiatives would be focused on bringing a spaceport to one or both locations.
Sierra Vista is already taking a major step toward that goal, pursuing a Federal Aviation Administration Part 433 license to operate a spacecraft reentry site. Sierra Vista says the licensing process could result in approval by early 2027. [emphasis mine]
As the map shows, Sierra Vista is an interior location. It is not likely many rocket companies will have an interest in launching from any spaceport established there. However, a landing range would make great sense, as southeast corner of Arizona is lightly populated and has plenty of open territory controlled by the government that could be utilized for this purpose.
Such a range would also attract a great deal of interest, especially for the recoverable capsule companies such as Varda and SpaceX’s Starfall. At present, there is no place within the United States where such capsules can land. Varda originally wanted to bring its capsules back at the Air Force’s Utah range, but red tape from both the Air Force and the FAA delayed that return for more than six months. The company then switched to bringing its capsules back at the Koonibba range run by Southern Launch in Australia. Since then two other American capsule startups have also signed on with Southern Launch.
By providing a U.S. landing range, Sierra Vista is doing basic capitalism: fulfilling a known need of customers.
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I *knew* the Gadsden Purchase would be useful for something!
My question is whether it is a good location for booster recovery downrange from?? Downrange recovery allowing considerably more payload to LEO than RTLS, is there a launch location up range that would be safe and useful?
This request has nothing to do with booster recovery. They are proposing using the region as a drop zone for orbiting capsules and spacecraft, which can be targeted very precisely to relatively small landing zones. At the moment the U.S. lacks such a zone.
Should be easier to get a foot in the door for recovering capsules and other orbital assets. IF it turns out to be a good location for booster recovery, then adding that later should be easier to permit by adding capabilities to an existing capability.
As a former resident of Sierra Vista, I dont think the SE corner of AZ is an ideal location to deorbit spacecraft. Too many people.
I’m now a resident of the great state of Nevada. The “test site” aka Area 51/52 is a far better place to allow spacecraft crashing at 18000 mph to come back to earth. Nobody lives there.
The Nevada location you suggest has the same problem as the Utah test range: It is a government military facility that does not want the public there. And the red tape is horrendous, which is why Varda and others switched to Australia.
I have spent a lot of time in southwest Arizona. It would not be hard to find a large enough empty area for this purpose.
Nobody is looking to do hypersonic impacts in Arizona. The only US companies with any such ambitions are already working for the War Dept. and have access to the Reagan test range at Kwajalein. The payloads at issue will descend under chutes. Not 18,000 mph. Probably not even 18 mph.