Space facilities around Cape Canaveral on Florida’s east coast are gearing up for a major acceleration of air activity in the coming months, years and decades. This build-up of spaceflight activity requires only new launch pads and improvements to processing facilities, but also expansion. The port additions are to accommodate a new generation of reusable rocket stages beyond the Falcon nine and Falcon Heavy.
NSF’s Max Evans and Julia Bergeron recently conducted a flyby of the Space Coast that not only provides us with a review of the progress of those improvements, but also provides indications of upcoming flight activities this year and next. SpaceX has resumed painting at Starship’s Pad 39A launch facility at Kennedy Space Center while Blue Origin’s second-stage hardware is tested.
In addition, the Relativity release facility for Terran R is moving forward and NASA is running Mobile Launcher 2 (ML-2) for the SLS 1B block. Airbus is also expanding its factory in the region for more satellite production. Canaveral will build more facilities to accommodate ships involved in area activities, adding the Blue Origin barge that would house the New Glenn landings.
Xspace
SpaceX has not only resumed work on the LC-39A’s Starship pad, but has also upgraded its existing launch infrastructure for Falcon family vehicles. In addition, SpaceX’s payload processing facility in Cape Town has gained a fresh coat of paint. The Roberts Road facility has been expanded and the site still houses some tower sections of Starbase’s Texas facility.
The launch site of Starship LC-39A recently got rid of the concrete legs that were meant to shape the base of the orbital launch pad. This indicates that the foundation underneath the cushion should be painted. A new design for the Florida Starship Release Platforms, as opposed to Starbase’s existing orbital release platform, is possible, but it remains to be seen whether a new flame trench will be added to the complex.
Some of the SCAFING from the LC-39A starship’s launch tower has been removed, and eventually there are plans to load the systems needed to run the existing Mechazilla “wand” arms and all other purposes needed to free the starship. It would come with the charging of quick-disconnect hardware and fuel lines.
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has indicated that the company plans to start Starship operations at the LC-39A facility in mid-2025. Therefore, a lot of additional work is expected on Starship’s launch tower and launch pad in the coming months.
Two Starship launch facilities are expected to be installed in Florida, as well as two in Texas. In addition to the LC-39A, a Starship launch facility is planned on the Cape Canaveral Space Station (CCSFS) side of Cape Town. The current applicants are the SLC-37B, which recently hosted the latest flight in the Delta family, and a new complex called the LC-50. Once the program’s additional launch facilities are built, Starship’s launch rate will increase significantly.
On LC-39A, an upgrade of the Falcon family’s release infrastructure is also underway. New liquid oxygen tanks have been added to the complex to allow for greater flexibility in Falcon Heavy mission recycling countdowns during cleanup.
Near SLC-40 at CCSFS, SpaceX’s payload processing facility earned black-and-white paintings in SpaceX company colors. A more effective upgrade to this facility is a new Starlink network gateway antenna, unveiled at SpaceX’s major facilities. This gateway is capable of reaching a data rate of up to 10 gigabits per second.
At the Roberts Road facility, sections of the release tower destined for Starbase’s Texas facility receive ladders and other fixtures before being shipped to Brownsville. A set of Mechazilla’s “wand” arms are also being assembled and prepared before shipping them to Texas. Build the second orbital launch tower.
Construction of Hangar X2 on Roberts Road is being widened on the north side and a new drainage formula has been seen with pipes leading to the retention pond on the west side of the complex. A new small construction was built on the site and a new communication tower. also built.
blue origin
Blue Origin’s extensive facility at Exploration Park is seeing new additions. The new composite structure for meetings, which will now be the Lunar Assembly Facility, on the south side, has noted advances in the structure of its foundation, and the installation of rebar has also been detected. such as staff and cars on site.
Additional land is also being prepared near this building, as piles of sand have been spread since April. The foundations have been laid for a new car park on the north face and new construction will be built in the vicinity of this car park.
New Glenn’s preparations for its first flight, scheduled for later this year at Calfinishar, are continuing, with apparatus for the new heavy rocket. A second surface, considered to be a flight aircraft, was discovered in tests in the 2CAT building. This level doesn’t have its paint yet or probably its engines are still being stress tested.
A partial supplemental article from the first level of New Glenn was also found in Exploration Park. This item is shorter than the first level of the Pathfinder observed this year and appears to lack its sections between levels and other sections of the tank.
The main door of the TCAT First Stage Test Center was closed, so it’s unclear if anything happened there during the flyby. However, new sections of the New Glenn apparatus were seen nearby, likely indicating that production of more cars was underway.
Blue Origin’s release pad on LC-36 is empty lately, while the second-stage transporter is back in the hangar. The first-floor conveyor is no longer next to the structure site, where it was detected in April. In addition, the Jarvis apparatus that had been scrapped no longer exists.
While Blue Origin still plans to conduct the first flight of New Glenn, the first of four needed to qualify the vehicle to release national security payloads, until later this year, it’s conceivable that activity on LC-36 will begin soon. In addition to renewed activity on the launch pad, FCC and FAA licenses are also things to watch out for before New Glenn makes its maiden flight later this year with NASA’s two Mars-bound ESCAPADE payloads.
Other companies
SpaceX and Blue Origin are the only ones operating at its facilities. Relativity is hard at work building LC-16 paints at CCSFS for its upcoming Terran R launch vehicle. Painting of the foundations for the horizontal integration installation is being done and water pipes are being added. the release platform, while additional paints are also being made at the release facility.
Much work remains to be done before the first flight of the reusable Terran R, recently scheduled for 2026. Terran R is designed to lift heavier payloads than the Falcon nine and will also compete with New Glenn and Vulcan.
Airbus USA Space
Currently, this plant is capable of building two satellites per day, having completed more than six hundred satellites for OneWeb, and is now ready to build the Arrow variety of satellites. Airbus is currently carrying out groundwork to expand the AOS plant to meet the requirements. The growing demand for small satellites and the facility will cover an area of 4,500 square meters.
Bechtel, contracted through NASA to build the ML-2 for the SLS program, began designing the platform in August 2023. The base of the ML-2 has grown and this giant, heavy design has now been raised 18 inches across 4 self-powered aircraft. Modular conveyors to prepare the base to be raised on six giant supports that are already in the crawler yard.
Once the ML-2 is assembled, a launch tower will be built on the pad. The ML-2 will be required for launches of the Artemis IV SLS Block 1B, scheduled for launch later this decade, like the existing ML. -1 cannot be seamlessly switched to Block 1B or the existing Block 1 version of SLS.
PORT CANAVERALS
The Port Canaveral facility has long hosted maritime activities related to spaceflight, such as visits to the ULA barge that delivered the Delta and Atlas rockets, as well as the homeport of NASA’s ships MV Liberty Star and MV Freedom Star in the space shuttle era.
These ships retrieved the shuttle’s forged rocket boosters from the sea after each flight and returned them to a factory in Utah for renovation. These ships also operated from the harbor to the rubble after the disastrous launch of the space shuttle Challenger on the STS-51L project in January 1986.
However, the port’s involvement in spaceflight activities is expanding due to SpaceX’s recovery of the Falcon 9’s thrusters and fairings after nearly every single flight, as well as its Crew and Cargo Dragon operations. Other cars with reusability capabilities, such as the New Glenn and Terran R are expected to operate from the Space Coast in the not-too-distant future, which will require more plans for Port Canaveral.
SpaceX already wants to coordinate its maritime traffic operations with other port users, such as cruise lines and military warships, as Port Canaveral’s traffic and activities have increased. Space Florida is proposing to expand Port Canaveral to accommodate Blue Origin’s New Glenn recovery vessel and other users. Moving forward, Space Florida commissioned a feasibility study in April 2024.
Space Florida is looking at short-term (five to 10 years) and long-term (10 to 50 years) solutions, as existing port facilities will not be able to cope with the expected exponential expansion in spaceflight traffic. Spaceflight companies are expected to launch and land boosters in 50 years, with a combined potential launch rate of 1,000 flights per year (more than three per day) or more.
To deal with this expected backlog of launches and the resulting port traffic, several proposals have been published. The main proposal at the moment is an expansion of the central turning basin to the north, while other concepts such as a committed pier near LC-34 and an expansion of the west turning basin. Whichever option is chosen, it can cost up to two billion dollars to complete.
The first phase of this expansion will disrupt Highway 401 through the harbor, but a later phase of the northward expansion of the center liner basin would require the relocation of Highway 401, the cutting of a new canal, and the framing of a new pier. The expansion of the intermediate-facing dock to the west would also require a new canal and the relocation of the road, while a pier near the LC-34 would face environmental conservation issues in the area.
While launches and spacecraft draw most of the attention around area exploration, the day-to-day work on the facility, as well as its constant maintenance and updating, is what helps keep flights on track and airworthy spacecraft. Port services, factories and services in the “port area that never sleeps” will continue to be modernized as new cars are put into service in the coming years and decades.
(Main image: SLC-40 with a Falcon nine and SpaceX’s payload processing facility. Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF/L2)
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