Horizontal launches could be making a comeback

The state’s spaceport authority, Space Florida, has been cleared to fully operate Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility, giving it the ability to attract horizontal launch companies to the Cape.

The Federal Aviation Administration Office of Commercial Space issued the operating license Thursday following a multiyear effort from Space Florida to secure use of the 15,000-foot-long runway. The spaceport authority wants to tap into the growing momentum behind horizontal launches, which happen when planes carry a rocket to cruising altitude before dropping it, and enhance Florida’s space launch prowess.

“It’s helping to build the state into being a location where, if you want to go into space, this is where you want to look first for setting up your operations,” said Dale Ketcham, Space Florida’s vice president of government and external relations.

Potential clients to the Cape’s shuttle runway could include Northrop Grumman, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch Systems, and business mogul Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit and Virgin Galactic, some of which are still fully developing their horizontal launch systems.

Space Florida has been eyeing their rise for several years, with the goal of developing the facility into a place that could attract those kinds of customers, Ketcham said. Space Florida took over the Shuttle Landing Facility in late 2015, but ob-