Opened as a small airfield serving the gold and silver mining industry in 1935, the Mojave Air and Spaceport (also known as the Civilian Aerospace Test Center) is one of the leading test facilities for the new commercial space flight industry (or "New Space" movement).

Mojave was the first facility to be licensed in the US for horizontal launches of reusable spacecraft, being certified as a spaceport by the FAA on June 17, 2004.

Scaled Composites has their headquarters here. Their spacecraft, SpaceShipOne, won the Ansari X Prize (a $10 million prize) by conducting the first privately funded human sub-orbital flight on June 21, 2004.

Not all companies at Mojave are subsidiaries of massive aerospace companies. Masten Space Systems is startup company with 12 employees that specializes in vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) spacecraft.

Other private spaceflight companies based at Mojave include XCOR Aerospace, Firestar Technologies, and Orbital Sciences Corporation.

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