---
title: "Canaveral Is Full: The Space Force Wants a Third Spaceport, and Soon"
description: "A senior commander says the military needs a new launch base by 2030 as annual launches head toward 700"
author: "Jan Sokol"
published: 2026-10-23T19:33:58Z
modified: 2026-10-23T23:46:08Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/canaveral-is-full-the-space-force-wants-a-third-spaceport-an-a60e98
language: en
tags: ["space", "military", "spacex", "infrastructure", "us"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Canaveral Is Full: The Space Force Wants a Third Spaceport, and Soon

*A senior commander says the military needs a new launch base by 2030 as annual launches head toward 700*

By Jan Sokol · October 23, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/canaveral-is-full-the-space-force-wants-a-third-spaceport-an-a60e98

## In brief

- A senior commander, Garrant, says the Space Force needs a new spaceport by 2030
- US spaceports logged 175 orbital launch attempts last year; 700 per year are projected by 2036
- A third site would ease congestion and add “geographic resiliency” against disaster or attack
- Options include Wallops, Alaska’s Pacific Spaceport Complex, and leasing commercial land such as SpaceX’s planned Louisiana site
- No decision or timeline has been set; local and state partnership is needed, Garrant said

There is a kind of congestion only prosperity produces. On Florida’s Space Coast and at California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base, rockets now queue the way ships once queued outside a silted harbor — and the United States Space Force has concluded that two front doors are no longer enough for the traffic of the heavens.

As [Ars Technica reported](https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/10/senior-commander-says-space-force-needs-new-spaceport-by-2030/), a senior commander named Garrant says the service needs a new military spaceport in operation by 2030. The arithmetic behind the urgency is stark: there were 175 orbital launch attempts last year from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center in Florida together with Vandenberg, and Space Force officials project that the country’s established spaceports will need to support 700 launches a year by 2036.

A third launch site would do two things at once. It would drain off demand now pressing against the limited real estate of the Cape and Vandenberg, and it would supply what Space Force leaders call “geographic resiliency” — insurance against a hurricane or a missile taking one of the great spaceports offline. In the long memory of military installations, this is an old lesson wearing a new uniform: the empire that keeps its fleet in one harbor is one storm away from silence.

![Rows of white rockets stand on a blue floor before three doorways in a dark wall, while one rocket flies overhead with orange flames.](https://rews.cc/img/0cf06de9d869222794cc5222186d93a3b271dd59.webp)

Options exist, but none is simple. The federal government already owns a third spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, now used for suborbital rocket tests and small- and medium-class satellite launches. The state of Alaska owns the Pacific Spaceport Complex, which can send small rockets up from the far north. And there is the commercial road: asked whether the Space Force might lease property from a privately owned launch base — the expansive spaceport SpaceX plans to build in southern Louisiana, for instance — Garrant left every gate open.

> We’ve discussed that we need to consider all of those opportunities: public-private partnership, new federal installation, state land, leveraging commercial land—all of those are possibilities. They all have pros and cons. We haven’t made that decision yet, but we’re not discounting any of those options.

What there is not, yet, is a plan. “It’s going to take a strong partnership with local and state governments,” Garrant said. “As far as decision timelines, we don’t have anything yet.” The generals can count the rockets; they cannot yet name the ground. Meanwhile the launch industry races ahead of its own infrastructure — Blue Origin alone [has spoken of 100 Florida launches a year](https://rews.cc/a/blue-origin-plans-100-florida-launches-a-year-for-a-rocket-t-4441ba) for a rocket that has flown twice — and every pad at the Cape grows more crowded with each manifest. Somewhere between the cadence of commerce and the caution of procurement, a third gate to orbit must be found. The Space Force says the decade will not wait for it.