MOJAVE, Calif. – On last week’s midterm ballots, Kern County voters weren’t just electing city and county leaders. One ballot item that may have surprised many residents was a board seat for the Mojave Air and Space Port.
The Mojave Air and Space Port at Rutan Field lies in the desert about an hour southeast of Bakersfield. Located in the small city of Mojave, the Air and Space Port is a significant part of the community, but its operations remain relatively unknown to greater Kern County.
The Air and Space Port is a non-commercial airport that also houses aerospace flight testing, research and development.
And although its board of directors is publicly elected, the Air and Space Port is not a public agency. Instead, it is a special category of agency known as a special district – much like utilities, cemeteries and transportation authorities.
“Although we have direct ties to Kern County, we are not subservient... We stand alone as a special district,” David Smith, CEO and General Manager of the Air and Space Port, told KVPR.
Smith has been CEO of the Air and Space Port for two years and reports directly to its governing board. Funding sources for the facility include public grants as well as private contracts and leases.
During the Nov. 3rd midterm elections, one seat for the board was up for election by Kern County voters. The two competing for the role, Diane Barney and James David Crocoll, have served on the board before. Diane Barney had earned 64.4% of votes a week after the election.
While Smith said those without aviation backgrounds can run for the position and have been on the board before, both Barney and Crocoll have backgrounds in the field.
Barney is a former Air Force officer and is currently an aerospace engineer at the Air and Space Port assisting on a project for NASA.
Crocoll is also an aerospace engineer at the Air and Space Port and grew up in Mojave.
Board meetings for the port are held bimonthly and are open to the public. They can be attended in person or viewed online through their website.
Commercial flights, research and development
Special districts in California are small community governments that are publicly elected and established by the community. These districts are often formed for utility purposes where smaller communities set up their own utility infrastructure.
“Special districts are units of government that are established by the citizenry when there is a need that their current form of government doesn't provide or there's a desire to have that service,” Lorenzo Rios, President of the California Special Districts Association told KVPR in a September 2025 Central Valley Daily podcast interview.
In 1972, residents voted to make the formerly named East Kern Airport District a special district.
According to Smith, three main operations occur at the port.
“First and foremost, and in the eyes of the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration, we are an airport,” Smith said. “We're a general use airport. We are open to the public.”
But as a non-commercial public airport, only private, charter and test flights take place there. Those with aircrafts can fly into Mojave, as well as store their planes and fuel up on site. The port receives grant funding from the Federal Aviation Association for infrastructure like runways and maintenance.
The Air and Space Port is also a research, development, testing and evaluation center for aviation advancement. It assists in the production of engine development, noise reduction technology, advanced cockpit displays and modifications to major airframe designs. Both commercial and advanced aircraft – like those that can reach high altitudes or go into a low space orbit – are developed there.
They have partnerships with about 60 aerospace and defense companies like Stratolaunch, National Test Pilot School, Scaled Composites, BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman. The National Test Pilot School onsite is also the only civilian test pilot school in the United States.
These partnerships sustain about 3,000 jobs for residents of eastern Kern County, according to Smith. The port also recently received $3.1 million through a California Jobs First grant to provide more jobs for the community.
“We are proud to say we're the largest producer of living wage jobs in East Kern,” Smith said. “East Kern unfortunately is a bit of an economic blight, and we are doing everything we can to lift this region up.”
20 years of spaceflights
The third major operation at the facility is the space port itself.
Spaceflights at the facility began in 2004 with the launch of the country’s first privately funded spaceflight known as SpaceShipOne. This flight was sub-orbital, meaning the aircraft reached space but was not traveling at the speed or trajectory needed to circle the earth.
That same year the airport received the first commercial space port launch operator license in the United States.
The name of the port was changed to Mojave Air and Space Port in 2012 and Rutan Field was added to the name in 2024 to honor brothers Burt and Dick Rutan.
Burt Rutan founded the company behind SpaceShipOne and Dick Rutan completed the first nonstop unrefueled flight around the world in 1986.
The port is currently approved for horizontal launches – in which aircraft and spacecraft take off and land on conventional airport runways like airplanes – but Smith said the facility is in the process of getting approved for vertical launches.
Only smaller rockets would be launched there, unlike the large commercial rockets by SpaceX and other companies that are launched in states like Texas or Florida.
