posted 12-15-2013 01:05 PM               

Please use this topic to discuss SpaceX's lease of Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

posted 12-16-2013 10:20 AM               

On the other hand, GO SPACEX! Personally, I'm looking forward to them using this amazing facility. It means so much more than a commercial enterprise using this historic site. It will also have major implications in the future for space exploration. We NEED to have commercial enterprise be allowed (and encouraged) to look at space exploration. It is only with commercial use will it become mainstream. Look at airplanes. In the beginning they too were just experiments and then they were (for all intents) just gov't machines used, let's say, for defensive means. Then once commercial enterprise started building and using them for commercial uses, they really took off (sorry for the pun).

posted 12-16-2013 12:00 PM               

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Originally posted by Gonzo:
I would imagine a lot of that will be determined by the wording of the lease.

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...the company will be required to maintain and provide NASA access to components on the pad for their historic preservation, including the gaseous oxygen vent arm at the top of the pad's fixed service structure and the emergency egress bunker, or "rubber room," located under the pad's surface.

Earlier this year, the space agency lowered and removed the pad's orbiter access arm. The arm, which is capped by the "white room" through which the astronauts entered the space shuttle, was placed into storage for future display.

posted 12-16-2013 03:33 PM               

As mentioned, the Pad 39B GOX arm is on display in the Space Shuttle Atlantis building at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. The Pad 39A orbiter access arm (OAA) and white room will be joining it on display later next year.

posted 12-20-2013 12:19 PM               

• SpaceX has proposed launching vehicles from Pad 39A as early as 2015, pending the agreement of their customer(s).

• SpaceX requested either a 20-year exclusive lease or a 5-year lease with three five-year options. NASA rejected the 5-year lease as "not in the best interest of the government."

• Though details of how SpaceX plans to convert Pad 39A are not included, the selection authority cited SpaceX's ability to convert LC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and SLC-4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base as reason to believe that SpaceX could execute its plan to convert Pad 39A.

posted 04-15-2014 12:06 PM               

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Originally posted by Cozmosis22:
Is that some kind of secret or are they essentially getting the control pad for free?

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NASA contemplates that the lease will be under the authority of the Commercial Space Launch Act, 51 U.S.C. § 50913, which requires that NASA set the price for the lease at an amount equal to the direct costs the Government incurs as a result of Tenant's use of the Premises. NASA does not foresee any direct costs associated with Tenant's use of the Premises apart from utilities usage which will be separately metered and charged.

posted 04-15-2014 02:45 PM               

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Originally posted by dabolton:
Does this lease limit them to the current pad perimeter or could they expand circumferentially it as necessary?

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• Pad A Logistics Facility
  
• Rechlorination Building
  
• Pad A Operations Support Building

posted 04-18-2014 12:22 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by dabolton:
What is the importance of the gaseous vent arm? Seems like a simple mechanical thing.

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posted 01-10-2015 10:51 AM            

Most of the current work appears to be taking place on the perimeter area of the pad, with the construction of a vehicle building – known as the Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF) – that will house the Falcon Heavy rocket and associated hardware and payloads during processing.

During rollout, the Falcon Heavy will be transported atop the Transporter Erector (TE), which will ride on rails, up the famous 39A ramp that once saw Space Shuttle and Apollo stacks arrive via the Crawler Transporters.

posted 02-25-2015 04:58 PM               

Positioned at the south perimeter of launch pad 39A, the hangar sits on the gravel crawlerway used to transport Saturn V moon rockets and space shuttles from the nearby Vehicle Assembly building to the launch pad.

...after laying the building's foundation, the Hawthorne, California-based space company started building the frame of the hangar last week.

...workers have installed ground storage tanks for the Falcon launcher's rocket-grade kerosene fuel — called RP-1 — on the northeast edge of the launch pad. SpaceX plans to use the shuttle-era liquid oxygen tank sitting on the northwest side of the pad.

Construction crews are also working in the launch pad's flame trench and will install rails leading up the ramp from the hangar to the Falcon rocket's launch pedestal. The rails will be used to transport the rocket horizontally to the launch pad, where it will be rotated vertical.

Engineers will also fabricate a transporter-erector and strongback device for launch pad 39A.

posted 04-06-2015 04:35 PM               

Continued progress on Pad 39A and its hangar that will house Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

posted 05-27-2015 08:18 PM               

Here are a few, but click on the link above to see the full set.

posted 09-02-2015 09:01 AM               

Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center will be future home to NASA Commercial Crew Program launches and Falcon Heavy missions.

posted 02-10-2016 08:41 PM               

Pad 39A was available for lease. There was no need to build a new pad when an existing pad was available.

Both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy exit the hangar at the base of the pad lying horizontal, riding on a transporter erector that follows rails leading up to the apron. Once in place, the erector raises the rocket to the vertical.

posted 05-15-2017 12:32 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
Both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy exit the hangar at the base of the pad lying horizontal, riding on a transporter erector that follows rails leading up to the apron. Once in place, the erector raises the rocket to the vertical.

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posted 05-15-2017 02:13 PM               

(Spaceflight Now has video of a Falcon 9 going vertical on the pad.)

posted 08-14-2017 10:46 AM               

Yesterday at 39A, I stood at the same spot I did in February (CRS-10) and used the same focal length to make a comparison GIF of RSS demo (Feb 17-Aug 13, 2017).

posted 12-18-2017 04:10 PM               

SpaceX has carried out some serious trimming of the gantry at launch pad 39A, as the launch of Falcon Heavy nears.

And for comparison, this is how pad 39A looked three weeks ago today.

posted 12-26-2017 11:41 AM               

Shuttle era RSS is being rapidly dismantled in recent weeks prior to first test flight of SpaceX Falcon Heavy — set for sometime early 2018. Large chunks of Rotating Service Structure being detached — see my Dec. 23 pics from Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex tour bus.