Location | Washington County, Maine, United States | ||||||||
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Coordinates | 44°26′40″N67°36′00″W / 44.4444°N 67.6000°W | ||||||||
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Launch pad(s) | 1 | ||||||||
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Location | Loring Commerce Centre Aroostook County, Maine, United States | ||||||||
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The Maine Spaceport Complex is the name for a series of proposed spaceports across the state of Maine being built for private companies like BluShift Aerospace. The project was started in 2020, and consists of planned locations in Brunswick, Portland, Orono, Aroostook County, and Washington County. [1] BluShift conducted the first successful launch of their Stardust series of rockets at Loring Commerce Centre (formerly Loring Air Force Base) on January 31, 2021. [2] [3] Afterwards, other planned launches from the site were canceled, and the next launch is planned to take place in the second quarter of 2024 either from Coastal Launch Pad nearby the towns of Jonesport and Beals in Washington County (although the Vertical Launch Pad at Spaceport America in New Mexico has also been considered).
The Guiana Space Centre, also called Europe's Spaceport, is a European spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, a region of France in South America. Kourou is located approximately 310 mi (500 km) north of the equator at a latitude of 5°. In operation since 1968, it is a suitable location for a spaceport because of its equatorial location and open sea to the east.
The Alcântara Space Center, former known as Alcântara Launch Center is a space center and launching facility of the Brazilian Space Agency in the city of Alcântara, located on Brazil's northern Atlantic coast, in the state of Maranhão. It is operated by the Brazilian Air Force. The CEA is the closest launching base to the equator. This gives the launch site a significant advantage in launching geosynchronous satellites, an attribute shared by the Guiana Space Centre.
Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida.
The Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska (PSCA), formerly known as the Kodiak Launch Complex (KLC), is a dual-use commercial and military spaceport for sub-orbital and orbital launch vehicles. The facility is owned and operated by the Alaska Aerospace Corporation, a corporation owned by the Government of Alaska, and is located on Kodiak Island in Alaska.
Spaceport America, formerly the Southwest Regional Spaceport, is an FAA-licensed spaceport located on 18,000 acres (7,300 ha) of State Trust Land in the Jornada del Muerto desert basin 45 miles (72 km) north of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and 20 miles (32 km) southeast of Truth or Consequences. With Virgin Galactic's launch of the VSS Unity, with three people aboard, on May 22, 2021, New Mexico became the third US state to launch humans into space after California and Florida.
The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) is a commercial space launch facility located at the southern tip of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island in Virginia, just east of the Delmarva Peninsula and south of Chincoteague, Virginia, United States. It is owned and operated by the Virginia Spaceport Authority.
The Vostochny Cosmodrome is a Russian spaceport above the 51st parallel north in the Amur Oblast, in the Russian Far East. It is intended to reduce Russia's dependency on the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The first launch took place on 28 April 2016 at 02:01 UTC. As of 1 July 2022, eleven launch attempts have been made with ten successes.
Space Florida is the aerospace economic development agency of the State of Florida. Founded in 2006, it works with commercial space companies, other governmental agencies, and academic institutions to develop space-related infrastructure.
Launch Pad 0 (LP-0), also known as Launch Complex 0 (LC-0), or Launch Area 0 (LA-0), is a launch complex at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Virginia, in the United States. MARS is located adjacent to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility (WFF), which ran the launch complex until 2003. WFF continues to provide various support services to MARS launches under contract with the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The Athena II is an American small expendable launch system which was used for three launches between 1998 and 1999, and which was scheduled to return to service in 2012 but has not been flown again as of 2024. It is a member of the Athena family of rockets, along with the smaller Athena I.
Astra Space, Inc. is an American launch vehicle company based in Alameda, California. Astra was incorporated in October 2016 by Chris Kemp and Adam London. Formerly known in media as "Stealth Space Company", the company formally came out as Astra Space, Inc. in a Bloomberg L.P. article by Ashlee Vance. Investors include BlackRock, Advance, ACME, Airbus Ventures, Innovation Endeavors, Salesforce co-founder Marc Benioff, former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, and more.
Exos Aerospace Systems & Technologies is an aerospace manufacturer and developer of reusable launch systems intended to support uncrewed orbital spaceflight launches, and is based in Caddo Mills, Texas.
Vector-R is a two-stage orbital expendable launch vehicle under development by the American aerospace company Vector Launch to cover the commercial small satellite launch segment (CubeSats). Vector Launch went bankrupt in December 2019 and re-emerged in October 2020. Two prototypes were launched in 2017.
Orbital Express Launch Ltd., or Orbex, is a United Kingdom-based aerospace company that is developing a small commercial orbital rocket called Prime. Orbex is headquartered in Forres, Moray, in Scotland and has subsidiaries in Denmark and Germany. Its future launch complex, Sutherland spaceport, is being built on the A' Mhòine peninsula in the county of Sutherland, northern Scotland.
The Virginia Spaceport Authority, formally better known as Virginia Space, is a political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Virginia headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia focused on bringing commercial spaceflight to Virginia and providing education in aerospace technologies across the Commonwealth. Created in 1995 as the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (VCSFA) in the name of states' rights by the Virginia General Assembly, Virginia Space owns and operates the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, located within the Wallops Flight Facility. The subdivision assumed its current name in April 2023.
BluShift Aerospace is an employee-owned American aerospace firm based in Brunswick, Maine. Targeting the growing smallsat and cubesat launch markets, bluShift is developing suborbital sounding rockets and small-lift orbital rockets which will be launched from a proposed new spaceport in Maine. The company has received primary funding from NASAs SBIR grant program, the National Science Foundations I-Corps grant program, the Maine Technology Institute, and the Maine Space Grant Consortium. The company has active operations at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station and Loring Air Force Base.
SaxaVord Spaceport, previously known as Shetland Space Centre, is a planned spaceport to be located on the Lamba Ness peninsula on Unst, the most northerly of the Shetland Islands off of mainland Scotland. The proposed site is near the RAF Saxa Vord radar station and the settlement of Skaw, adjacent to the Saxa Vord distillery.
ABL Space Systems is an American aerospace and launch service provider, based in El Segundo, California, that manufactures deployable launch vehicles and infrastructure for sending commercial small satellites into orbit. The company manufactures its components in the United States.
Kulasekarapattinam Spaceport is the second spaceport of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), located in Kulasekarapattinam, a coastal village in Thoothukudi district of Tamil Nadu, India. The facility is being constructed over 2,350 acres. As of September 2023, more than 90% of land has been acquired and the groundbreaking was done on 28 February 2024.