August 19, 2018

FAA Gives OK for Spaceport at Colorado's Front Range Airport (Source: KUSA)
Adams County will receive the 11th license in the United States to operate a spaceport, according to a news release distributed on Friday afternoon. The Federal Aviation Administration granted the county north of Denver the license after a 180-day review period. This designation would allow vehicles to make horizontal takeoffs and landings at the former Front Range Airport site.

According to the news release, the vehicles at the spaceport would launch like traditional planes, but then fly on a special-use airspace where rocket boosters launch the craft into suborbital flight. Space companies will have to apply for licenses to actually use the spaceport, and then the aircraft that take off from there would also have to receive a license. A news conference on Monday will reveal the name of the facility at the airport in Watkins, as well as additional information, the news release said. (8/17)

Rocket On! These Cool Student Experiments Just Launched to Space (Source: Space.com)
Dozens of students got to see their experiments travel from school to space. A sounding rocket soared from a NASA rocket facility in Virginia Tuesday (Aug. 14), carrying several student experiments under the RockSat-X program, in collaboration with the Colorado Space Grant Consortium.

The mission took place at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, beginning with a flawless liftoff at 6:14 a.m. EDT (1014 GMT). The payload reached a maximum altitude of 98.5 miles (158.5 kilometers) before splashing down as planned in the Atlantic Ocean, about 64 miles (103 km) from the launch site. The experiments and data were expected to be recovered by sea the same day.

"Participating students are able to apply what they learn in the classroom into a hands-on project," Giovanni Rosanova, chief of the Sounding Rockets Program Office at Wallops, said in a statement from NASA. "To be a part of this process is rewarding to everyone involved in RockSat-X at Wallops. (8/17)