Taranto-Grottaglie air-runway chosen by Virgin for sub-orbital flights

Last week at the Italian Embassy in Washington DC, in the presence of Ambassador Armando Varricchio, the President of the Puglia Region, Michele Emiliano, and the Rector of the Polytechnic of Bari Eugenio di Sciascio, an ambitious cooperation plan was signed. Us space cooperation on suborbital flights ", between the managing director of Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit, George T.Whitesides and the managing director of the Apulian holdings Angel Group, Vito Pertosa. Object of the agreement is the use of the Taranto-Grottaglie air track.

The US correspondent of the Sun 24 Ore who reported the news has specified that the airport of Taranto-Grottaglie is the first authorized European spaceport, also by ENAC, which will soon become the base of departure and arrival of space planes " trade "for satellite launches and sub-orbital flights.

Apparently it all started from the placet of US President Donald Trump after the meeting at the White House with Premier Giuseppe Conte on 30 last July.

Virgin Galactic is the company of Richard Branson who is developing these suborbital airplanes, capable of flying out of the Earth's atmosphere by climbing over the 80 kilometers from the ground, and significantly reducing travel times in the absence of gravity.

The Taranto-Grottaglie track was chosen as it is the longest in Europe, 3,6 kilometers. Angel Group is a group from Puglia founded in 2008 by Vito Pertosa, a company with a high rate of innovation active in aviation, space and rail that has 1.200 employees, half of which engineers and annually invests the 13% of turnover in Research and Development.

The American and Apulian companies have signed two long-term collaboration agreements with joint investments for satellite launches with planes and orbital flights. Soon the first launch of a satellite will be made through an airplane.

Angelo Petrosillo (vice president of the Angel group), commented on the ambitious and prestigious agreement:

"We are working hard to achieve this result. Virgin will make the first commercial launch with an airplane belonging to an Angel group satellite. We are studying the date. We'll tell you when we're ready. We would like to do it not in the Mojave desert but from Grottaglie. The track is ready ".

The other activities, object of the agreement, are those of space tourism and then, in a third moment, space logistics. Virgin Galactic has already sold 600 tickets for space flights, from 25mila dollars each.

Puglia is chosen by celebrities for the holidays: Madonna, Helen Mirrer, Bono Vox. With space tourism, this territory is preparing to become attractive for billionaires around the world even for sub-orbital flights. Virgin has a business plan to bring tourists for 45 minutes into space. We would like these flights to start from Grottaglie because as a region we can combine infrastructure, industrial expertise and a high level tourist receptivity. We have something more to offer compared to the desert ".

The third and last use of the Apulian spaceport in perspective is that linked to logistics with sub-orbital flights.

The vehicle that Virgin is testing is capable of covering the Grottaglie-Los Angeles route in just three hours ".

Taranto-Grottaglie air-runway chosen by Virgin for sub-orbital flights