Talks heat up over private spaceport in Willacy County

RAYMONDVILLE — Ready for a facelift, Willacy County?

It just might happen, officials say.

Negotiations to bring an aerospace company to Willacy County for commercial satellite launchings are intensifying, according to County Judge John F. Gonzales Jr.

If the high-tech company is successful in leasing two sites for a total of about 50 acres, “it will change the face of Willacy County,” the judge said.

The operation he hopes will locate in Willacy County “will be a NASA-style launch site,” he said.

He said he cannot yet release the name of the company. But he said, “They’ll be investing up to $50 million and hiring 100 to 200 full-time people, from low-end labor up to electrical engineers. Wages will be at least 30 percent above the local norm.”

Locating launch sites in Willacy County would be a boon to local businesses, such as motels, restaurants and stores, as engineers, scientists and other workers come in about a month prior to each launch, he said. The events also should bring tourists who want to observe the launches, he said.

This is not the first time that Willacy County has heard of plans for space launches.

In the late 1990s, the South Texas Spaceport Consortium, a 13-county alliance, formed in order to raise funds for a project that would launch rockets with payloads such as communications satellites in Willacy and two other counties.

But after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Federal Aviation Administration banned rocket launches for a time, which put a halt to projects such as private space launches, Gonzales said.

The launches proposed now would use much larger rockets than were used in experiments conducted in Willacy County in the 1990s.

The new rockets were tested in December, and the private company that did the testing recovered a reusable container similar to 1960s-type space capsules, the county judge said.

He declined to name the company on Tuesday, however.

“I’m under a confidentiality agreement,” he said. He isn’t sure where the tests were conducted. But he said he thinks they were done at Cape Canaveral, Fla., or some other government installation.

“They’re the first private company to have successfully launched a low-altitude space flight and successfully recovered it,” he said of a reusable space capsule to deploy satellites.

The capsule would sit atop the rocket and open up to deploy the communications satellites and then fall back to earth to be recovered for reuse, he said.

Willacy County is an ideal spot for the launching operations, which are now being conducted on leased government property, such as Cape Canaveral, he said.

Willacy County’s vast amounts of unpopulated open space are some of the key assets the launch company needs, Gonzales said.

One site the company is negotiating for is near the Laguna Madre on the El Sauz Ranch, the judge said.

“They have to be close to water, away from populated areas,” he said. “They have to have at least a 3-mile clear zone around the launch site.”

Although Cape Canaveral, Fla., is also at the right latitude, launching over water there still involves firing the rockets over populated areas in the Caribbean, he said.

There is actually more clear zone over water for rockets that would be launched from Texas, he said.

“They have to hit a needle (of open space) between Florida and Cuba,” he said.

Willacy County isn’t the only possible South Texas site, but the launch sites must be near water, he said.

“If it doesn’t work out here, there are a couple sites in Cameron County. But they would have to buy up some houses there,” he said.

Besides Willacy County’s ideal location as a launch site, the recent installation of fiber optic communications cable throughout the county is also vital to the launch operation, Gonzales said.

Willacy County officials should know if the deal has been closed within the next two weeks, Gonzales said.

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Allen Essex writes for the Valley Morning Star in Harlingen.