The Alaska Aerospace Corporation is building out a missile test range from Kodiak Island to the Aleutians. The southern edge of that range in Adak could also potentially include a spaceport.
That’s according to a public notice from last week on Aug. 27, which said that the state-owned corporation is in the early phases of developing a Pacific Test Range for hypersonic tests, orbital launches and other aerospace operations.
Alaska Aerospace owns and operates the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Kodiak Island near Narrow Cape, which will be the anchor for the 1,100-mile range stretching southwest to Adak. The Aleutian Island community is also set to host a new SpinLaunch satellite launch facility in the coming years. And if a spaceport is set up in Adak, John Oberst, the ceo and president of Alaska Aerospace, said launches could then go in the opposite direction from there and effectively double the use of the test range.
“Where we shoot our rockets is the range already," he explained. "We want to instrument the Aleutian Islands to be able to do the telemetry all the way down the Aleutians. We don’t have to change the actual range, we just need to add instrumentation to it.”
Alaska Aerospace already launches rockets into that range from the Kodiak Island spaceport. Adding telemetry will allow the corporation to transmit and record data from rockets launched at the Kodiak Island spaceport, as well as remotely blow them up if needed.
The corporation’s plan according to the Aug. 27 notice, involves potentially setting up fixed sites at Sand Point, Unalaska and Adak rather than relying on vessels in the water or air to provide the telemetry. Those non-fixed methods are dependent on weather and need long stretches of open water to be able to capture down-range telemetry during rocket launches or missile tests according to the corporation.
Oberst has said several times before that capacity limitations in other spaceports and test ranges around the country are driving the need for more capacity in Alaska like this new Pacific Test Range. There are only four other Pacific ranges currently in the country according to Alaska Aerospace’s notice. Those are Vandenburg SFB (VSFB) in California, Pacific Missile Range Facility – Barking Sands (PMFR) in Hawaii, Point Mugu Sea Range (PMSR) off the coast of Southern California, and Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Test Site on Kwajalein.
“In the eastern and western ranges, Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg, they’re busy with the big stuff, the Falcon 9s and the New Glenns and the Artemis missions," Oberst said. "And so the little guys are looking for places where they can go shoot a lot, and they can’t do it in the eastern, western ranges like they used to. So they’re coming to us under that too.”
And that’s not just for rocket launches. Oberst said the federal government and its military contractors will likely come to Alaska’s rocket launch facilities for hypersonic missile tests and to support the massive multi-billion-dollar Golden Dome project.
On Aug. 21 the federal government successfully launched from the Kodiak Island spaceport, but Oberst declined to provide further details about the launch. An online satellite tracking outfit says it was likely a hypersonic missile test.
In a press release on Aug. 22, the corporation said that Kodiak residents should be “proud” of the successful launch and “the significant contribution their community provides to the space legacy of the U.S.
According to the corporation’s request for information [RFI] for the Pacific Test Range that was posted last week, interested contractors have until late September to submit responses. This is not a formal request for proposals and the information is subject to change.
Alaska Aerospace Corporation has not announced a timeline for the range project.
