Spaceport America is the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport, owned and operated by the State of New Mexico. It serves as a launch site for suborbital and orbital flights, offering both vertical and horizontal launch capabilities. Key tenants and partners include Virgin Galactic, UP Aerospace, SpinLaunch, and other companies in the commercial space industry, with the goal of enabling affordable and efficient access to space. Associated keywords: commercial spaceflight, launch facility, space tourism, New Mexico Spaceport Authority.
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Virgin Galactic has begun unpowered glide flights over Spaceport America in New Mexico using its prototype spaceplane VSS Unity.
The experiment launched on a UP Aerospace sounding rocket from Spaceport America in New Mexico.
Spaceport America encompasses 18,000 acres and is surrounded by additional land owned by the state of New Mexico, the Bureau of Land Management, and nearby White Sands Missile Range.
Spaceport America features a 12,000-foot by 200-foot runway and vertical launch complexes.
New Mexico has seen increasing economic impact from the state-built Spaceport America.
LANL collaborated with UP Aerospace and Spaceport America to conduct space-related tests locally.
Spaceport America is situated on 18,000 acres adjacent to the U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico.
UP Aerospace has been successfully conducting sub-orbital space launches from Spaceport America since 2006.
UP Aerospace maintains a launch complex and payload processing center at Spaceport America.
UP Aerospace completed its 23rd suborbital space flight at Spaceport America, carrying a Los Alamos National Laboratory payload to an apogee of roughly 72 miles on November 19, 2025.
Spaceport America has a rocket-friendly environment of 6,000 square miles of restricted airspace.
Virgin Galactic announced plans in November to raise $300,000,000 to accelerate development of additional spaceplanes and a mothership aircraft for Spaceport America.
Virgin Galactic’s financial projections disclosed in August envision Spaceport America hosting 275 flights a year using four spaceplanes and two mothership aircraft and generating nearly $1,000,000,000 in annual revenue.
Virgin Galactic is building out an initial fleet of Delta-class suborbital spaceplanes that will operate from Spaceport America in New Mexico.
VSS Unity released from VMS Eve at 11:26 a.m. Eastern on 2024-06-08 and reached an altitude of 87.5 km before landing back at Spaceport America at 11:41 a.m. Eastern.
Virgin Galactic is considering long-term options to expand operations to other sites in the United States or other countries and to expand at Spaceport America itself.
Spaceport America was funded by local counties in 2007.
Richard Branson promised hundreds of launches from Spaceport America for his 'spaceliner' tourism venture.
Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic conducts launches from Spaceport America using the spaceplane SpaceShipTwo.
Spaceport America has added a viewing area for visitors to watch Virgin Galactic flights since the 2021 launches.