The statutory spaceport system

Florida does not have one spaceport. It has a statutory spaceport territory defined at s. 331.304 of the Florida Statutes, with a separate section at s. 331.307 for the facility at Cape San Blas. The territory covers eight counties [FS331304] [FS331307]. The statute is the reason this map is statewide rather than a map of Brevard County. It places state spaceport authority on land in the Panhandle, on the First Coast and in Miami-Dade, in several cases where no orbital launch operation is recorded at this release.

The territory by county and legal basis

Eight counties, listed by the subsection that names them. Two subsections name Brevard and one names four Panhandle counties together, so the statute has more subsections than the map has counties. Gulf County appears both in the Eglin description and in the separate Cape San Blas section and is counted once.

The places inside the system

Ten mapped places sit inside the statutory system across those eight counties. They are not comparable entity types, and the table says which is which. A statutory territorial designation, a federal launch installation, a NASA field center and a licensed horizontal launch spaceport are four different things that the statute happens to collect under one heading.

CS/SB 968 passed the legislature on 5 March 2024 and was enacted as chapter 2024-76, Laws of Florida, adding Homestead Air Reserve Base in Miami-Dade and Tyndall Air Force Base in Bay County to the territory effective 1 July 2024 [CH202476] [SB968AN]. The statute names the Bay County installation as Tyndall Air Force Base and this map uses that name [FS331304].

Territory is not activity

A statutory designation creates state authority over land. It does not create a launch site, a tenant, a lease or a job. Three statutory status nodes carry no active orbital launch operation at the cutoff: the Cape San Blas statutory spaceport facility, the statutory territory at Homestead Air Reserve Base and the statutory territory at Tyndall Air Force Base. Two further operating range and airport nodes within the statutory system also carry none: Eglin range complex and Space Coast Regional Airport and Spaceport. They are on the map because the statute puts them there, and because the designation is the instrument the state reaches for when a tenant does arrive.

Within statutory territory, Space Florida may exercise the powers the statute authorizes, including property, financing, lease and infrastructure program functions, subject to the terms of applicable federal, state, local and private property agreements; the designation does not give the authority ownership or control of a federal installation or of every parcel in the territory. The Spaceport Improvement Program operates through the same statutory authority and remains subject to the applicable property, funding and intergovernmental agreements. Those relations are typed separately on this map. A statutory designation is a designates edge. The authority’s standing powers over a territory are an administers territory edge. A commercial tenancy on that ground is a leases edge. A federal site license is an operates licensed site edge. The four relations are kept apart because they carry different consequences. A launch complex operated under an assignment from the installation owner is an operates complex edge, and a site whose redevelopment is authorized before any lease is recorded is a selected to redevelop edge.