SpaceX Takes Over Historic KSC Launch Complex 39A
By Space Coast Daily // April 15, 2014
manned mission planned for 2016
ABOVE VIDEO: SpaceX will use LC-39A to launch their Falcon 9 Heavy rocket sometime in early 2015, with a manned mission planned for 2016. Falcon Heavy is the world’s most powerful rocket, a launch vehicle of scale and capability unequaled by any other currently flying.
BREVARD COUNTY • KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA – NASA announced that Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has signed a 20-year lease to the rights to KSC’s historic Launch Complex 39A.
SpaceX will use the pad to launch their Falcon 9 Heavy rocket sometime in early 2015, with a manned mission planned for 2016.
SpaceX won the lease over Blue Origin, a start up rocket company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
The reuse of LC-39A is part of NASA’s work to transform the Kennedy Space Center into a 21st century launch complex capable of supporting both government and commercial users.
KSC is having success attracting significant private sector interest in its unique facilities.
The center is hard at work assembling NASA’s Orion spacecraft and preparing its infrastructure for the Space Launch System rocket, which will launch from LC-39B and take American astronauts into deep space, including to an asteroid and Mars.
SpaceX’s third station resupply run was scheduled for today but has been delayed to no earlier than Friday after a helium leak was detected in the rocket’s first stage.
