After a failed rocket test at Kodiak's spaceport this summer, the facility has successfully launched a new venture. The Pacific Spaceport Complex-Alaska will sign an agreement later this week to support other spaceports worldwide by sharing one of its systems.
When a rocket is launched from any spaceport, the typical standard practices involve tracking the flight and remotely monitoring it through what’s known as a range safety and telemetry system, or RSTS. John Oberst, CEO of the Alaska Aerospace Corporation that owns and operates the spaceport, said the system combines multiple capabilities.
“It’s also providing a safety function where if that rocket starts to have any issues, we make sure we destroy it before it gets anywhere where it can do harm,” Oberst said. “So that’s the range. Safety is the control of the rocket and destroying it if something goes wrong. And telemetry is tracking that data stream from the rocket, where we’re tracking the rocket and getting the data from it.”
Oberst said the spaceport, on Narrow Cape on Kodiak Island, has set up its own version of the RSTS in shipping containers to be mobile and deployable all over the world. He said the system has gone to spaceports in the United Kingdom and Europe as well as New Zealand, just to name a few.
“Rocket Lab, which is a very successful rocket company, in my opinion, on the commercial side is second to SpaceX right now; we helped them with their first 10 flights with RSTS,” Oberst said. “We helped them become Rocket Lab in New Zealand years ago.”
Oberst will be in Italy on Sunday to sign an agreement with eight other spaceports from various countries. He said it will create more standardization across spaceports.
The spaceport mostly employs Kodiak residents, Oberst said, but when the system is shipped overseas teams from the island go, too. Oberst said the spaceport has enough staff to support two missions or launches simultaneously, one in Kodiak and one abroad.
Since 2015, the Kodiak spaceport has not used state or federal funds to cover its operations or maintenance costs and must instead rely on its earned revenue. Oberst said RSTS and other activities, aside from just launching rockets, bring that revenue in.
“And when you’re not launching a rocket, there’s still preparations for a launch, pad modifications, pre-exercise scenarios where you go through the motions of launching a rocket, but you don’t actually launch a rocket,” he said. “Those are all revenue-generating events and that’s where we get our revenue to keep the doors open."
And those activities are necessary, as there likely won’t be a rocket launch taking place on Kodiak Island before the end of this year. ABL Space Systems was preparing to launch one of its rockets this summer, but a July test damaged it beyond repair.
In the coming weeks, Oberst said residents will likely see activities going on at the spaceport that look like preparations for a launch, but they are just exercises and tests to prepare for next year.