Virgin Galactic wants to open commercial spaceport in Italy

Space agency Virgin Galactic has announced plans to open a commercial spaceport in Italy that will allow it to launch people into space. Virgin Galactic is entering into a partnership with two Italian companies for this.

According to Virgin Galactic, the partnership came about after two years of negotiations. The other two companies participating in the spaceport are Sitael and Altec, the latter being partially owned by the Italian government. The intention is that they will jointly launch rockets from the future spaceport Grottaglie Spaceport. This is at Taranto-Grottaglie Airport in the south of Italy.

The intention is that Virgin Galactic, through a subsidiary, will make the spacecraft with which the space flights are carried out. The other two companies will then mainly have to take care of the infrastructure and peripheral matters. Virgin CEO Richard Branson hopes with the collaboration to make the first commercial space flights in Europe, with paying passengers.

Virgin Galactic has been planning to offer commercial space travel for some time now. For the time being, the company mainly did this in the United States.