new mexico house of representatives oks next spaceport project

A new hangar designed especially for assembling and testing payloads may be going up at the 18,000-acre Spaceport America site 55 miles north of Las Cruces.
 
Members of the New Mexico House of Representatives, following the lead of the House Appropriations Committee, have given their approval to a $6.3 billion state budget that includes $10 million especially to build the new hangar.
 
The budget still needs to win the approval of the full Senate.
 
According to the bill passed by the House, the $10 million will go for the “planning and construction of an aerospace satellite testing and development hangar” at the Spaceport.
 
But the appropriation is contingent upon the New Mexico Spaceport Authority “contracting with a vendor specializing in advanced aerospace products and technologies to use the hangar.”
 
Construction of the larger Spaceport America site started in the spring of 2006 and was completed 6 years later at a cost of around $209 million.
 
The site today includes the offices for both the Spaceport Authority as well as the spaceflight company Virgin Galactic, in addition to a 47,000 square foot hangar for storing spaceplanes.

By Garry Boulard

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