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Spaceport Camden logo
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced this morning that it has awarded Camden County with a launch site operator license for Spaceport Camden.
The license will allow the county to host up to 12 small vehicle launches per year. However, each individual launch performed by a space company must also be licensed by the FAA on its own merits.
The county has spent nearly 10 years and $10 million on the environmental impact statement and associated safety and procedural reviews, as well as thousands of hours of collaboration with state and federal agencies and organizations.
“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 Gary Blount, chairman of the Camden County Board of Commissioners. “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."
With the awarding of the license, Camden will be the 13th licensed spaceport in the U.S. and the third vertical lift facility on the East Coast. According to a news release from the county on Monday, vertical lift launch sites are preferred because they provide extra velocity from the rotation of the Earth.
"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," the county news release stated.
The record of decision comes on the heels of an effort by spaceport opponents to block the purchase of the Union Carbide property at the end of Harrietts Bluff.
According to an online video by Megan Desrosiers of the environmental advocacy group One Hundred Miles, approximately 3,800 petitions signed by Camden County voters were delivered to the Camden County Probate Court last week. The petitions seek a special election to compel the Camden County commissioners to overturn their resolution to purchase the property.
The probate court has not yet announced the completion of the verification process for those ballots.
According to the FAA's licensing order, "Camden County cannot sign an agreement with a potential launch operator to launch a vehicle from Spaceport Camden until Camden County provides a purchase, lease or site use agreement [with Union Carbide and Bayer Cropscience] acceptable to the associate administrator for the Commercial Space Transportation that demonstrates Camden County can prevent incursion into the area within the debris dispersion radius, during launch activity for the duration of the license."
For more coverage on this developing story, see Thursday's edition of the Tribune & Georgian.