Tue, Feb 02, 2016
Becomes First Commercial Entity To Use Former Shuttle Landing Strip
FedEx has become the first commercial carrier to land an airplane at the former Space Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
In a blog post, the company said the landing last month signifies a new collaboration between the freight hauler and the space industry.
“What we’re going through now is the privatization of space,” said Carl Asmus, FedEx Vice President of Supply Chain Solutions and Market Development. “Private companies are now taking over the exploration of space. This could drastically improve the speed of payload delivery,” he added.
With the commercial space industry growing at such a rapid rate, and the growth of biomedical experimentation and clinical trials at the ISS, FedEx says it is uniquely positioned to serve the aerospace industry. FedEx is often tasked with the movement of the items from the lab to the launch site, then at the recovery point back to the lab for the analysis.
The company says it can also help with speed and reliability. “FedEx is playing an integral role in making sure that the integrity of those experiments is maintained at a very high level," says Kris Kimel, Co-Founder and Chairman of Space Tango, whose mission is to provide researchers the ability to use microgravity to help them make their next big scientific breakthrough.
This inaugural landing was one that FedEx Captain Joe Nieves will not forget.“It was fantastic to fly in here today and be part of history,” he said.
(Image from FedEx YouTube video)
More News
Aero Linx: JAARS Nearly 1.5 billion people, using more than 5,500 languages, do not have a full Bible in their first language. Many of these people live in the most remote parts of>[...]
'Airplane Bounced Twice On The Grass Runway, Resulting In The Nose Wheel Separating From The Airplane...' Analysis: The pilot reported, “upon touchdown, the plane jumped back>[...]
"Burt is best known to the public for his historic designs of SpaceShipOne, Voyager, and GlobalFlyer, but for EAA members and aviation aficionados, his unique concepts began more t>[...]
"Polaris Dawn, the first of the program’s three human spaceflight missions, is targeted to launch to orbit no earlier than summer 2024. During the five-day mission, the crew >[...]
There Are SO Many Ways To Get YOUR Aero-News! It’s been a while since we have reminded everyone about all the ways we offer your daily dose of aviation news on-the-go...so he>[...]