Oklahoma announces historic space flight partnership
By Kolby Terrell
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BURNS FLAT, Oklahoma (KOCO) — Oklahoma is gearing up to launch more space flights, with the Space Industry Development Authority announcing on Thursday that Burns Flat is bringing a revolutionary space plane to their port.
“It will be capable of launching to suborbital space, and it can launch more than one time per day, which is highly atypical,” said Brenda Rolls, with the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority.
Burns Flat is a small Oklahoma town known for its spaceport.
But now, Oklahoma leaders say by 2027, it will push our state into the next space frontier.
“Oklahoma will be the first inland launch site where there will be a way to reach microgravity,” Rolls said.
The Aurora Space Plane, made by Dawn Aerospace in New Zealand, is a new way for the state to bring research to space.
Oklahoma officials who brought about the partnership said it’s going to do things that would normally take much longer to do on Earth.
“What this allows is for there to be microgravity research,” Rolls said.
That means it will eliminate the effects of gravity, so researchers can pay to go to the edge of space and study physics and biology.
“This will be a game changer in that it will be significantly less expensive. It will be a much more rapid pace. So, developments will occur faster. There can be much more scientific discovery at a faster pace,” Rolls said.
Lieutenant Governor Matt Pinnell said it could become “America’s busiest suborbital launch site.”
“I think there’s gonna be a big demand and we’ll see additional customers coming to Oklahoma who want to pursue research,” he said.
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Officials said Oklahoma universities will be able to bring their research up for free for the first year when they the space planes get off the ground in 2027.
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