Becomes First Commercial Entity To Use Former Shuttle Landing Strip

FedEx has become the first commercial carrier to land an airplane at the former Space Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

In a blog post, the company said the landing last month signifies a new collaboration between the freight hauler and the space industry.

“What we’re going through now is the privatization of space,” said Carl Asmus, FedEx Vice President of Supply Chain Solutions and Market Development. “Private companies are now taking over the exploration of space. This could drastically improve the speed of payload delivery,” he added.

With the commercial space industry growing at such a rapid rate, and the growth of biomedical experimentation and clinical trials at the ISS, FedEx says it is uniquely positioned to serve the aerospace industry. FedEx is often tasked with the movement of the items from the lab to the launch site, then at the recovery point back to the lab for the analysis.

The company says it can also help with speed and reliability. “FedEx is playing an integral role in making sure that the integrity of those experiments is maintained at a very high level," says Kris Kimel, Co-Founder and Chairman of Space Tango, whose mission is to provide researchers the ability to use microgravity to help them make their next big scientific breakthrough.

This inaugural landing was one that FedEx Captain Joe Nieves will not forget.“It was fantastic to fly in here today and be part of history,” he said.

(Image from FedEx YouTube video)

FMI: www.fedex.com