Secretary of the Air Force F. Whitten Peters told a conference Thursday that commercial launches should get equal priority to military launches in the schedules of spaceports run by the Air Force. However, the Secretary was expressing a "personal opinion," not a change in policy, an Air Force spokesman later told space.com.

The Secretary's opinion also contained a caveat -- commercial launches should get equal priority "except when we have special national security considerations," said the spokesman, Air Force Capt. Todd Visian.

The existing policy is that commercial launchers have access to Air Force facilities "when we have excess capacity," noted Visian. The policy is currently under review by a White House panel.