January 21, 2016

When a FedEx 757 landed on Kennedy Space Center's three-mile shuttle runway, it accomplished something no other commercial aircraft had before. It became the first commercial carrier to land on the strip, signifying the start of a new collaboration between FedEx and the space industry.

'What we're going through now is the privatization of space,' said Carl Asmus, FedEx Vice President of Supply Chain Solutions and Market Development. 'Private companies are now taking over the exploration of space. This could drastically improve the speed of payload delivery,' he added.

With the commercial space industry growing at such a rapid rate, and the growth of biomedical experimentation and clinical trials at the International Space Station (ISS), FedEx is uniquely positioned to serve the aerospace industry. FedEx is trusted with the movement of the items from the lab to the launch site, then at the recovery point back to the lab for the analysis. We offer cold-chain packaging for high-value temperature-sensitive shipments, and have the capability to monitor temperature and other environmental factors through our SenseAware tracking technology to help ensure vital materials are not compromised during transit.

We can also help with speed and reliability. 'FedEx is playing an integral role in making sure that the integrity of those experiments is maintained at a very high level', says Kris Kimel, Co-Founder and Chairman of Space Tango, whose mission is to provide researchers the ability to use microgravity to help them make their next big scientific breakthrough.

This inaugural landing was one that FedEx Captain Joe Nieves will not forget.'It was fantastic to fly in here today and be part of history,' he said.

FedEx Corporation issued this content on 2016-01-21 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 2016-01-21 19:26:01 UTC

Original Document: http://about.van.fedex.com/blog/fedex-accomplishes-a-first-for-commercial-aviation/