On Monday, NASA officials said the space agency will hand over control of the Kennedy Space Center's (KSC) shuttle landing strip to Space Florida.

Space Florida is a quasi-government agency, which has been created to expand the space industry. It will manage the runway as a testing ground for new companies and technologies for the next 30 years.

The formal signing ceremony to hand over the three-mile-long runway for future spacecraft is set for June 22. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed Monday.

The facility for space shuttles opened in 1976. The facility is located 2 miles northwest of KSC's iconic Vehicle Assembly Building. The runway stretches 15,000 feet long and 300 feet wide, plus 1,000-foot paved overruns on each end.

The runway has seen occasional use for satellite deliveries, race car tests and other purposes since the last space shuttle returned to Earth in July 2011.

Florida Governor Rick Scott, who announced the deal at the Paris Air Show, said, "With this agreement, Florida will gain access to both unrestricted airspace and one of the longest runways in the world, which will provide the Space Coast with a competitive advantage over any other state competing for aerospace jobs".

According to estimations of the Economic Development Commission of Florida's Space Coast, the Space Florida's operation of the runway will create more than 200 new jobs over six years in Brevard County.