SpaceX Pad 39A - KSC (updates - now official)

[Dr Mordrid]

DONE DEAL BABY!

Launchers: Falcon 9 v1.1, F9R, Falcon Heavy, FHR, BFR (placeholder name for a super-heavy launcher more powerful than Saturn V, Shuttle, SLS or Energiya)

Missions: NASA and military, DragonRider commercial crew, commercial satellites,deep space (including Mars)

April 13, 2014

NASA Hosts Launch Complex 39A Status Update

NASA will provide a status update on Launch Complex 39A at 2:30 p.m. EDT, Monday, April 14 at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The update, which will be held at pad 39A, will not be carried live on NASA Television.

The update is open to media already badged for Monday's SpaceX launch to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The Pass and Identification Building on State Road 3, Merritt Island, will be open to pick up media credentials on Sunday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and on Monday from 7–10 a.m., resuming at 12:30 p.m.

Media will be bused to Launch Complex 39A from Kennedy’s Press Site. Buses will begin loading at 1:45 p.m. and depart at 2 p.m. Following the event, buses will take media to view the SpaceX launch and return to the Press Site by 5:30 p.m.

NASA has been in negotiations since December with SpaceX for an agreement to use and operate the historic site. The pad is where Apollo 11 lifted off from on the first manned moon landing in 1969, as well as being the launch site for first space shuttle mission in 1981 and the last in 2011.

For more information about Launch Complex 39A, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/kennedy

[Dr Mordrid]

http://www.floridatoday.com/story/tech/science/space/2014/04/14/spacex-takes-over-ksc-pad-39a/7711859/

SpaceX takes over KSC pad 39A

SpaceX today signed a 20-year agreement to take over Kennedy Space Center's historic launch pad 39A, the starting point for Apollo moon shots and numerous shuttle missions.

"We'll make great use of this pad, I promise," said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX president and chief operating officer, during an announcement at the pad.

SpaceX hopes to launch a Falcon Heavy rocket from KSC in the first quarter of next year.

SpaceX plans to build a processing hangar near the pad and utilize much of the existing infrastructure, Shotwell said.

The pad would launch astronauts if NASA selects SpaceX to fly crews to the International Space Station.

The company is one of several competing for the contracts to be awarded later this year, along with Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corp., which would launch on United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rockets.

NASA no longer needs pad 39A, and in December chose SpaceX over Blue Origin to negotiate an agreement to take over responsibility for operating and maintaining the pad.

The deal was signed moments before today's announcement with NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and KSC Director Bob Cabana, both former shuttle astronauts who have launched from pad 39A.

"Pad A has served the human spaceflight program well through Apollo and shuttle," said Cabana. "It's going to continue to play a vital role in our nation's future."

[Dr Mordrid]

Fox has a good report of the SpaceX-NASA announcement. Key outtakes with hints of their planned changes.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/04/16/nasa-hands-over-historic-apollo-era-launch-pad-to-spacex/

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On Monday, NASA signed a property agreement with SpaceX beginning a 20-year lease to occupy and use the launch pad. Over the course of the next two decades, the Hawthorne, California-based company will operate and maintain the facility at its own expense.
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"We've had architects in our launch site engineering team working for many months on the sidelines," Shotwell said. "We will launch the Falcon Heavy from here from this pad early next year. We'll carry on with additional commercial launches next year, and, if we are granted the pleasure of moving forward in the commercial crew program, we would launch the Dragon capsule with crew here at 39A as well."

SpaceX claims the Falcon Heavy will be the "world's most powerful rocket." With its 27 first stage engines and ability to lift to orbit the equivalent mass of a Boeing 737 jetliner loaded with passengers, crew, luggage and fuel, only the Saturn V, last flown from Pad 39A in 1973, delivered more payload to space than will the Falcon Heavy.

SpaceX representatives have said that the company plans to retain and extend upward the 350 foot high fixed service structure that was added to Pad 39A for use by the space shuttle. The pad's rotating service structure, the large gantry that swung around to envelop the orbiter to install cargo in its payload bay, is not needed for Falcon rockets and may be removed.

"We'll have to build the launch head or launch crown over the infrastructure here, we'll leverage a lot of the plumbing that exists, we will have to bring in some of our own, and critically, we'll be bringing in all of our own instrumentation systems," Shotwell described. "We'll be building a hangar ... to roll the vehicle out, go vertical and launch."

NASA's terms for the lease mandated that several of the pad's more iconic parts be preserved for history, including the gaseous oxygen vent arm mounted at the top of the fixed service structure and the emergency egress bunker, or "rubber room," located under the pad's surface.

Last year, NASA lowered and removed Pad 39A's orbiter access arm. Capped by a "white room" through which the astronauts entered the shuttle, the arm was held for future display.

They'll be some modifications to [the launch pad], but the historic elements we are leaving," Shotwell said.
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SpaceX now has responsibility for three launch pads: two in Florida, Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center and Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and one in southern California, Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base. The company has also said it is considering*establishing a new launch pad in Texas.