Fossil Beach was closed for testing operations going on at Pacific Spaceport Complex, in preparation for next rocket launch

Alaska’s Pacific Spaceport Complex is gearing up for its next launch at its site on Kodiak Island. Island residents saw access to a local beach closed for several days over the last week as various testing is underway.

Robert Greene is the President of Aurora Launch Services, a subsidiary of the Alaska Aerospace Corporation, which operates out of the spaceport on Kodiak’s Narrow Cape. According to Greene, the commercial customer is performing various hazardous operations testing before scheduling a launch date.

Aurora Launch Services and the spaceport are required to issue a 30-day notice to the public and impacted parties in the air and sea before a launch can happen. That means the next rocket launch from Kodiak’s spaceport is still more than a month away.

In the meantime, the unnamed customer has been doing several days’ worth of testing on their vehicle at the launch pad, which required the road to Fossil Beach to be closed. The first closure was on the evening of March 4 from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. and the others were from March 6 through March 9 during the same timeframe.

Greene says for safety reasons the road was closed from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. for a period of five days last week as fuel and other chemicals were loaded onto the space-bound vehicle on site.

Greene did not identify who the customer is but said it is a commercial company not a government entity. The last time a launch occurred at the spaceport was in January of 2023, which resulted in ABL Space Systems’ rocket crashing on the launch pad.

More information about the upcoming launch will be released in the coming days and can be found online at https://akaerospace.com/