News Brief: Colorado’s Front Range Airport is getting a new name — the Colorado Air and Space Port — thanks to the Federal Aviation Administration’s approval of a spaceport license. The facility, six miles southeast of Denver International Airport in Adams County, won’t be used for vertical rocket launches. Instead, it’s approved for horizontal takeoff-and-launch operations like the procedures planned by British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch venture. In an Associated Press report, airport director Dave Ruppel said the first space missions are probably at least five years away. Nevertheless, it’s a “tremendous feeling” to win FAA approval, he said. There are 10 other FAA-licensed launch sites, spread from Florida and California to Alaska.

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