Alleviating Spaceport Traffic by Rewarding Operators Act of 2025

Grants for spaceport transport operators

This bill would create a pilot grant program at the Department of Transportation for licensed launch and reentry site operators. Operators would apply in a form and time set by the Secretary and must keep grant records available to the Secretary or the Comptroller General. Starting the fiscal year after 2026, base grants would pay $250,000 for each licensed launch and $100,000 for each permitted launch from the prior fiscal year. A base grant would be capped at $2,500,000 per operator per year. If multiple operators are adjacent to the same Federal launch range, the Secretary would choose which operator gets a grant using specified criteria. An operator with licenses for more than one adjacent site would have those sites treated as one for grant counts. Qualified nonfederal entities could match base grants in the same year to trigger supplemental grants next year: a 25% supplemental when the match equals the base grant, or a 50% supplemental when the match is at least twice the base grant. Supplemental grants would not count toward the $2,500,000 base cap. All grants under the program would be paid from funds available under 49 U.S.C. 106(k) and all grants together could not exceed $20 million in any fiscal year. To meet that cap the Secretary could reduce or decline supplemental grants first and then proportionally reduce base grants. The pilot would begin the fiscal year after 2026 and would sunset on October 1, 2030.