Officials celebrated the beginning of work on the development of 154 acres in Phase 1 of the Houston Spaceport at Ellington Airport.

What began as a concept four years ago took its official first steps toward concrete reality with a ground-breaking ceremony on June 26, 2019, to celebrate work on Phase 1 of the Houston Spaceport at Ellington Airport.

Representatives from the Houston Airport System, Houston City Council, the Federal Aviation Administration and community and project partners were on hand to celebrate the beginning of work on the development of 154 acres in Phase 1.

The first new construction since June 2015 when the FAA approved the application for the 10th commercial spaceport license in the United States, work already is under way. The project scope includes providing streets, water, wastewater, electrical power distribution facilities and fiber optic and communications facilities necessary to attract future development.

"When complete, Phase 1 will provide the ground work to support the companies that produce the cutting-edge innovations needed to take commercial space travel and aviation into the sub-sonic, super-sonic and hyper-sonic realm," said Mario Diaz, Houston Aviation director.

Phase 1 of the Houston Spaceport project offers potential tenants and partners a unique environment in which to collaborate as well as an operational platform to achieve critical business objectives. By housing organizations from across several industries and disciplines on one campus, the "innovation incubator" concept will foster and accelerate key aerospace engineering activities, including:

• Component and composite development and fabrication;
• space vehicle assembly;
• zero-gravity scientific and medical experiments;
• microsatellite deployment;
• astronaut training and development; and
• space tourism.

Eventually, when all 450 acres at Ellington Airport available to the project are fully developed, the Houston Spaceport will become a focal point in the region for aerospace research, manufacturing and commercial space operations.

For more information, visit fly2houston.com/spaceport.

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