FAA approves spaceport on Georgia’s coast

CAMDEN COUNTY, Ga. — The Federal Aviation Administration has approved a launchpad that would send commercial rockets into space from coastal Georgia. The decision was announced on Monday.

Spaceport Camden is a multi-user, vertical lift, commercial launch site on the Atlantic seaboard that will support up to 12 small vehicle launches per year.

Historically, the area was the alternate launch site for NASA’s Apollo program in the 1960s.

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“In the 20th century Camden County was declared the ‘Gateway to Space.’ With this license, we have retained that title again in the 21st century,” said Steve Howard, Camden County Administrator and Spaceport Camden executive project lead. “This once in a generation opportunity will provide a new frontier of economic prosperity for Camden, the region and the state of Georgia. Georgia is part of the new space race, and we will become one of the leaders.”

Spaceport Camden becomes the 13th licensed spaceport in the U.S., but just the third vertical lift facility on the East Coast. Vertical lift comprises the lion’s share of commercial space activity and low latitude east coast launch sites are preferred due to the extra velocity provided by the rotation of the Earth.

“It has been long time coming, but Camden County is immensely proud of this accomplishment. With this license, Spaceport Camden offers coastal Georgia over 100 miles of opportunity,” said Board of County Commissioner Chairman, Gary Blount. “We are no longer a one-dimensional economy solely reliant on the brave sailors and contractors at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay for economic prosperity.”

Located below 31 degrees of latitude, Spaceport Camden takes advantage of free boost velocity from the earth’s rotation to maximize payload and minimize fuel necessary to reach orbit. As a result, Spaceport Camden’s location offers similar launch characteristics to Cape Canaveral, the world’s busiest spaceport.

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Camden County is the ideal location to meet growing launch demand from the commercial space industry - a $447 billion industry that Bank of America predicts will grow to $3 trillion by 2047. Not only does Camden County have a highly trained military workforce that can transition upon retirement to employment into the commercial space industry, the surrounding area has transportation infrastructure such as roads and rail that can provide support to the investment community.

A recent study for the Pentagon found that the majority of US Spaceports are unsuitable for future launch needs because they are horizontal, not vertical launch sites like Spaceport Camden. The study notes, “[d]ue to the inherent performance limitations of horizontal launch, the future space economy will be dependent on vertical launch.”

The study also found that without additional vertical lift capacity at sites like Spaceport Camden “…the U.S. will still remain precariously dependent on a handful of key spaceports – a dependency that, if not resolved, will undermine U.S. interests strategically and commercially in the next decade.”

Learn more about Spaceport Camden here.

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