State rocket company looks to test hypersonic weapons, study advanced missiles with new Aleutian rocket range
The state rocket-launching corporation hopes to create a 1,100-mile rocket test range from Kodiak Island to Adak Island in the Aleutians to test hypersonic weapons and provide a new location to evaluate advanced missiles for the military.
In the company’s 2024 annual report, Lindsay Knight, chair of the board of directors, said the company is pursuing the Pacific test range “to safely and effectively support America’s advance (sic) missile test missions.”
The corporation says that operational limits at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, the Pacific Missile Range Facility Barking Sands in Hawaii, the Point Mugu Sea Range off the coast of California and the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Test site in the South Pacific have created an opening for a new test range reaching into the Aleutians.
The limits at the existing facilities are due in part to the requirement for “ship and air-based solutions which are limited by weather, sea-states, and the time of year to ensure there is sufficient open water.”
“The solution is to establish a series of telemetry, tracking and command destruct systems (CDS) capabilities (nodes) along the Aleutian Island Chain that provides telemetry data and vehicle safety throughout extended flight profiles. The unique location and geography of the Aleutian Island chain allows for fixed ground sites that can support air, sea, undersea, and land-launched systems to provide maximum 24/7 test flexibility in an unconstrained environment,” the state-owned corporation said.
Alaska Aerospace says it is trying to find U.S. businesses “having an interest in and capability to deliver mobile and/or fixed telemetry systems to provide telemetry data and vehicle safety throughout extended flight profiles to support the outfit and potential operation of the range.”
The corporation likely expects the federal government will pay for the new rocket test range since the federal government is the main backer of the corporation. The state has not provided a regular appropriation for years.
In July the rocket company and the University of Alaska signed a memorandum of agreement to cooperate in expanding launch services at Kodiak and Poker Flat, the rocket range north of Fairbanks.
“We want to make Alaska the low-cost gateway to space,” Geophysical Institute Director Bob McCoy was quoted as saying in a UAF press release. “Other launch ranges are pretty full, so customers are looking to Alaska. We have a lot of capacity.”
The state company wants to expand its launch schedule up to 25 projects a year.
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The Alaska Aerospace Corporation annual report for 2024, released in July, lists the above as members of its board of directors.