Teruel Airport is an

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial Aviation, air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surf ...

near

Teruel Teruel () is a city in Aragon, located in eastern Spain, and is also the capital of Teruel (province), Teruel Province. It had a population of 35,900 as of 2022, making it the least populated provincial capital in Spain. It is noted for its har ...

in the Teruel Province of

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. Known under the commercial name Plataforma Aeroportuaria-Teruel (PLATA), it was certified for public use by the Spanish Aviation Safety and Security Agency (AESA) on 5 February 2013, after being repurposed from an original military airbase. Permission for air operations was granted by the AESA on 28 February 2013. The airport serves as an

aircraft maintenance Aircraft maintenance is the performance of tasks required to ensure the continuing airworthiness of an aircraft or aircraft part, including overhaul, inspection, replacement, defect rectification, and the embodiment of modifications, compliance ...

and aircraft storage facility for the company, and has no passenger traffic. The airport includes a main building with a

control tower Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled a ...

as well as a basic terminal, but is not equipped to handle passenger traffic. An

aircraft rescue and firefighting Aircraft rescue and firefighting (ARFF) is a type of firefighting that involves the emergency response, mitigation, evacuation, and rescue of passengers and crew of aircraft involved in aviation accidents and incidents. Airports with schedul ...

(ARFF) station is located next to the terminal. Also on site are three main maintenance and part-removal hangars (the original one for Boeing 747s and the newest for Airbus A340s). PLATA is owned by a consortium formed by the Government of Aragon and Teruel City Council, and does not belong to Aena Group, the Spanish airports management company. The dry climate makes the airport suitable for long-term aircraft storage, with capacity for 250 aircraft. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, approximately 100 grounded planes were parked there.

PLD Space Propulsion Test Facilities

In August 2018, Spanish launch service provider PLD Space signed a concession with the Teruel Airport Consortium for 13,337 m² of space at the airport to test

launch vehicle A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multistage ...

technology. The agreement covered 25 years, with an optional 10-year extension. PLD Space was to invest

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists of a stylized letter E (or epsilon), crossed by t ...

1M in infrastructure for the construction of a new

control room A control room or operations room is a central space where a large physical facility or physically dispersed service can be monitored and controlled. It is often part of a larger command center. Overview A control room's purpose is produc ...

, offices, access paths, a

rocket engine A rocket engine is a reaction engine, producing thrust in accordance with Newton's third law by ejecting reaction mass rearward, usually a high-speed Jet (fluid), jet of high-temperature gas produced by the combustion of rocket propellants stor ...

maintenance hangar and a new

test bench A test bench or testing workbench is an environment used to verify the correctness or soundness of a design or model. The term has its roots in the testing of electronic devices, where an engineer would sit at a lab bench with tools for measurem ...

to test its Miura 1 rocket. Over the previous three years, testing had been conducted at the airport on a short-term contract basis.PLD SPACE signs a 25-year concession for rocket engine testing at Teruel Airport
SpaceDaily, 2018-08-07

References

External links

Official site

Tarmac Aerosave Company

Airports in Aragon Teruel Aircraft boneyards {{Spain-airport-stub

PLD Space Propulsion Test Facilities

See also

References

External links