Star Harbor has announced plans to create the world’s first private spaceflight training facility, as well as a cutting-edge research and development (R&D) campus called Lab-to-Orbit.
The 53-acre training facility for space tourists, called the Star Harbor Academy, will be located in Lone Tree, Colorado. It will be designed by AOA and is due to open in 2026.
Star Harbor aims to train and certify commercial astronauts through four programmes, which are focused on operators, users, mission specialists and passengers.
The Star Harbor Academy will offer microgravity flights, a neutral buoyancy facility, high-gravity centrifuge, land-based and underwater habitats, hypobaric and hyperbaric chambers, simulation labs, and a human performance centre.
Commercial spaceflight training in Colorado
It will also house a space-themed hotel and entertainment venues including an esports arena. The campus is expected to attract more than two million annual visitors.
Star Harbor is led and founded by Maraia Tanner, an astrophysicist and former aerospace engineer, who said there is an “unprecedented renaissance occurring within the space industry”.
She said the company will “foster a new generation of explorers, innovators, entrepreneurs, educators and technologies to leave a powerful, positive legacy for generations to come”.
The team includes Sian Proctor, a commercial astronaut who flew with SpaceX’s private Inspiration4 orbital mission, as well as Ronald Garan Jr, a former NASA astronaut.
“We’re thrilled that Star Harbor has chosen to land in Lone Tree, one of the best places on Earth,” said Lone Tree Mayor Jackie Millet.
“We are situated in the heart of Colorado’s space industry – the second-largest space economy in the nation.”
Space tourism is valued at more than $450 billion and expected to grow to more than $1 trillion by 2040. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce predicts the US will need more than 1.5 million workers to power the space economy.
US-based space company Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC) has announced a new space hotel concept called Pioneer that could welcome guests as soon as 2025. Its previously-announced Voyager Station is set to open later in 2027.
Space Perspective recently unveiled the world’s first ‘space lounge’, and World View has shared its designs for a capsule that will fly passengers to the edge of space from 2024.
Images: Star Harbor
