Gov. Jim Gilmore will officially inaugurate the Virginia Space Flight Center's new spaceport launch pad at Wallops Island Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore Sept. 14.

The Virginia Space Flight Center, operated by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority in partnership with Old Dominion University, the Commonwealth of Virginia, NASA and Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology, is the third licensed commercial spaceport in the United States.

Billie Reed, assistant professor of engineering management at Old Dominion, is the executive director of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, which operates the Virginia Space Flight Center. He oversees the management, marketing and business operations for the authority, as well as for the space flight center.

As a licensed launch site, the Virginia Space Flight Center will provide facilities and services to launch the next generation of communications and scientific satellites by providing state-of-the-art facilities.

With the completion of the launch pad, the first phase of the flight center's planned spaceport construction, the VCSFA will soon be ready for more. The second phase will include the construction of the service tower on the launch pad.

"We are currently negotiating a multi-launch, two-year contract beginning in the year 2000," said Reed. "It will be worth about $9 million in the spaceport's activities."

The center hopes to beginning launching rockets from the new launch pad in the year 2000.