The Air Force will license launch complex 36 at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., to the state of Florida for use as a commercial launch site for boosting commercial satellites into low-Earth orbit and beyond, Space Florida, the state’s public-private aerospace development organization, announced yesterday. The agreement, which is subject to completion of the environmental impact evaluation, boosts the state’s efforts to create a commercial launch zone on the US East Coast that will attract and sustain national and international aerospace business in Florida. The Air Force ceased using the complex in 2004.
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…