Cecil Spaceport in Jacksonville, Florida

Cecil Spaceport is the FAA-licensed commercial launch site at Cecil Airport in southwest Jacksonville, operated by the Jacksonville Aviation Authority for horizontal launches only.

The Federal Aviation Administration's spaceport list names the site Cecil Air and Space Port, gives the operator as the Jacksonville Aviation Authority and the location as 13365 Simpson Way, Jacksonville, and lists license LSO 09-012 with a launch type of horizontal (FAA, Spaceports by State). The FAA shows an issue date of January 10, 2020, a renewal date of January 10, 2025 and an expiration date of January 10, 2030, so the Jacksonville license is current through the end of the decade.

Horizontal is the defining feature. The authority's own spaceport site calls Cecil the first licensed horizontal launch commercial spaceport on the East Coast (Cecil Spaceport, Jacksonville Aviation Authority), and its 2021 mission control announcement explains that the new center is intended to support horizontal launch operations at the Spaceport (JAA release, July 27, 2021). Rockets that lift off vertically use other Florida sites on the FAA list.

Cecil is one of three FAA-licensed horizontal spaceports in Florida on the FAA list, alongside the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center and the Exploration Spaceport at Titusville.

The FAA's Florida listing mixes federal ranges and FAA-licensed sites (FAA, Spaceports by State). Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center are federal sites for vertical and horizontal launches, Space Florida's Launch Complex 46 holds an FAA license for vertical launches, and the remaining Florida entries, including Jacksonville's Cecil site, are FAA-licensed.

The dates on the list differ by site. The Exploration Spaceport, run by the Titusville-Cocoa Airport Authority, shows the same five-year pattern as Cecil, issued May 5, 2020, renewed May 5, 2025 and expiring May 5, 2030, while the Shuttle Landing Facility entry still shows an expiration date of January 15, 2026 on the FAA page fetched for this Jacksonville guide (FAA). Whether that entry has been renewed is not stated on the page.

Cecil was Naval Air Station Cecil Field until the Navy's 1993 base closure round, and the airfield passed to the Jacksonville airport system in 1999.

The Navy's Base Realignment and Closure program office lists Naval Air Station Cecil Field, FL among its 1993 disposal installations (Navy BRAC Program Management Office). The Jacksonville Aviation Authority's history records that in 1999 more than 6,000 acres of aviation related facilities and four runways were added to the Jacksonville airport system when the Cecil Field military base was transferred to it (JAA, History of Aviation).

Those four runways are the spaceport's main asset. The authority's Cecil Airport page describes four 200-foot-wide runways, three of them 8,000 feet long and the fourth 12,500 feet, one of the longest in Florida (JAA, Cecil Airport). The same page places Cecil about 15 miles west of downtown Jacksonville in the southwest quadrant of the city, with frontage on I-10, which connects less than ten miles east to I-95.

The authority that runs Cecil is itself a product of Jacksonville's government history. The JAA history says management of the city's airports went to the Jacksonville Port Authority in 1968 as part of an overall consolidation of Jacksonville's government, and that in May 2001 the Legislature approved splitting that body into separate airport and seaport authorities effective October 1, 2001 (JAA history).

Florida law makes Cecil Airport and the Cecil Commerce Center spaceport territory, and Space Florida designated Cecil a Space Territory in June 2011.

Section 331.304 of the 2026 Florida Statutes lists, among the properties that constitute spaceport territory, certain real property located in Duval County which is included within the boundaries of Cecil Airport and Cecil Commerce Center (Section 331.304, Florida Statutes). Jacksonville's site sits in that statute beside the Cape Canaveral and Eglin Air Force Base properties.

The Jacksonville Aviation Authority announced on June 13, 2011 that Space Florida had designated Cecil a Space Territory on June 9, and that the Florida Department of Transportation now had legal authority to fund spaceport-related transportation facilities within Cecil (JAA release, June 13, 2011). The same release said FDOT had approved Cecil Spaceport as a planned Strategic Intermodal System facility, and that Cecil had recently received FAA grant funds to develop a Spaceport Master Plan, after which the authority could pursue money for roadways, taxiways, and assembly and payload facilities.

Federal airport money has also flowed to the Jacksonville field. In July 2019 the FAA announced a $2 million Airport Improvement Program grant to Cecil Airport in Jacksonville to rehabilitate a runway and install airfield guidance signs (FAA, July 9, 2019).

It is the spaceport mission control center that opened at Cecil with a new 126-foot air traffic control tower on July 27, 2021.

The Jacksonville Aviation Authority's release says the center was dedicated to astronaut Dr. Norman Thagard, a graduate of Paxon High School in Jacksonville and the first American astronaut to ride to space on a Russian spacecraft (JAA release, July 27, 2021). The release gives the tower at approximately 7,500 square feet and the mission control center at 1,831 square feet, and says design and construction were made possible with grants from FDOT and Space Florida.

The same announcement framed the tower as a response to demand at the Jacksonville field. It said all existing buildings at the airport were leased, and that Boeing had announced the previous December construction of a 362,000 square foot hangar on the east side of the airport's runway. The Dr. Norman Thagard Mission Control Center will be used by operators conducting space operations at Cecil, according to the release.

Most of the activity at Cecil is ordinary aviation business, from aircraft maintenance and repair to corporate flying and air cargo.

The Jacksonville Aviation Authority describes Cecil as its third general aviation airport and fourth airport overall, with facilities suited to aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul operations (JAA, Cecil Airport). Its listed assets include 537,000 square yards of apron, twelve hangars totaling over 1 million square feet and over 350,000 square feet of general office and support facilities.

The JAA page adds that three commercial railroads, a deep water seaport and Jacksonville International Airport all converge on the area, and it points readers to the Cecil Commerce Center for site development information (JAA, Cecil Airport). The same page says Cecil provides a base of operations for corporate aircraft, general aviation, air cargo and National Guard and Reserve aviation.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by rechecking the FAA Spaceports by State list and its July 2019 grant announcement, the Jacksonville Aviation Authority's history, Cecil Airport and Space Territory pages, the Cecil Spaceport site and its 2021 tower release, Section 331.304 of the Florida Statutes and the Navy BRAC office listing.