Francisco Pallares - Spaceport America

One of the challenges for spaceports is attracting new business to be able to sustain operations. At Spaceport America, that is the job of Dr. Francisco Pallares, the newly-appointed Director of Business Development.

Dr. Pallares joined the New Mexico Spaceport Authority from Sul Ross State University and was the former Deputy Director for Economic Development at the City of Las Cruces prior to accepting his new position.

Spaceport America is probably best known as the home of Virgin Galactic, which is poised to resume crewed flights as early as May 25. But the spaceport has other clients and functions as well, and attracting new business is critical to the facility’s ongoing operations.

Built for Attracting New Business

Spaceport America was the first commercial spaceport in the world. It is an FAA-licensed launch complex, situated on 18,000 acres adjacent to the U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico, has a rocket-friendly environment of 6,000 square miles of restricted airspace, low population density, a 12,000-foot by 200-foot runway, and vertical launch complexes, so there is plenty of room for expansion. On the podcast, Tom Patton talks with Dr. Pallares about how the NMSA goes about marketing the facility to potential clients, what kinds of new business they are looking to secure, and why they are important to the overall success of Spaceport America.

The vision for the NMSA is for Spaceport America to become a premier multi-modal Spaceport for point-to-point space transportation, aerospace operations, research, development, and testing in support of our Nation’s commercial, civil, and national security space sectors. “I would not see it as something far fetched that we can start thinking about Spaceport America as having that value added, that additional production, into how can we deliver things across the world in two hours,” Dr. Pallares said.

How does what happens in space affect your everyday life? The Ex Terra podcast is dedicated to introducing you to many of the interesting people involved in the commercial space industry, and taking you behind the scenes with many of the companies making significant contributions to the new space economy. The podcast is available on Anchor, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Audible, Breaker, Overcast, Pocketcasts and Radio Public.

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