Ellington Airport is a public and military use airport in Harris County, Texas, United States. It is owned by the City of Houston's department of aviation, Houston Airport System and located southeast of downtown Houston. Formerly known as Ellington Field, then Ellington Air Force Base, then again as Ellington Field it is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015, which categorized it as a general aviation reliever airport. The airport does not have scheduled commercial passenger service. However, Continental Airlines used to operate daily regional services between Ellington and Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport between 1990 and 2004. On 17 October 2018, the City of Houston approved Phase 1 of the Houston Spaceport project on the Ellington Airport site. History Established by the Army Air Service on 21 May 1917, Ellington Field was one of the initial World War I Army Air Service installations when aviation was in its infancy. It is named for 1st Lt. Eric Ellington, a U.S. Army aviator who was killed in a plane crash in San Diego, California in 1913. Originally created as a training facility, Ellington Airport is currently used by military, commercial, NASA aircraft and general aviation sectors. Ellington Airport is one of the few airfields built for World War I training purposes still in operation today. For additional history related to Ellington's status as a military airfield, see Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base. The City of Houston annexed Ellington Field in the late 1960s. In January 2009, a name change from Ellington Field to Ellington Airport was approved by the Houston City Council. In August 2011, the city announced that the facility would be renamed Ellington International Airport. However, as of May 2013, it is still listed as Ellington Airport by the Federal Aviation Administration and the Houston Airport System. In April 2014, Sierra Nevada Corporation signed an agreement with Houston Airport System officials to explore development of Ellington as a commercial spaceport. The ultimate goal of the agreement is to use Ellington as a landing site for the company's Dream Chaser space plane. A feasibility study found it would cost US$48 million to $122 million to equip Ellington for landing and launching small space vehicles on a regular basis. With federal approval in June 2015, Ellington Airport was granted a Launch Site License from the Federal Aviation Administration that established the airport as the 10th commercial spaceport