{"id":14859,"date":"2017-02-19T20:33:05","date_gmt":"2017-02-19T12:33:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/historic-launch-pad-back-in-service-with-thundering-blastoff-by-spacex\/"},"modified":"2017-02-19T20:33:05","modified_gmt":"2017-02-19T12:33:05","slug":"historic-launch-pad-back-in-service-with-thundering-blastoff-by-spacex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/historic-launch-pad-back-in-service-with-thundering-blastoff-by-spacex\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic launch pad back in service with thundering blastoff by SpaceX"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SpaceX sent a cargo capsule with nearly 5,500 pounds of experiments and supplies on a three-day trip to the International Space Station on Sunday, firing the automated spaceship through low-hanging clouds and into orbit from the same launch pad where Apollo astronauts began voyages to the moon.<\/p>\n

A kerosene-fueled 213-foot-tall (65-meter) Falcon 9 rocket powered the cargo freighter into space, soaring on a northeasterly course from launch pad 39A at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center at 9:39 a.m. EST (1439 GMT) atop 1.7 million pounds of thrust.<\/p>\n

A few minutes later, the first stage booster nailed an on-target landing back at Cape Canaveral in the first such return to the launch base in daylight.<\/p>\n

The launch \u2014 the first SpaceX has conducted from pad 39A \u2014 was timed for the Dragon cargo carrier align its course with the orbital path of the space station.<\/p>\n

The historic launch complex, situated about a half-mile (750 meters) from the Atlantic Ocean, was the departure point for 94 missions before Sunday.<\/p>\n

Originally constructed in the 1960s for the Apollo moon program, pad 39A hosted 12 Saturn 5 blastoffs on test flights, all of the moon landing missions and the uncrewed launch of NASA\u2019s Skylab space station from 1967 through 1973.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s fleet of space shuttles launched from the pad 82 times, including the first and last flights of the program in 1981 and 2011.<\/p>\n

The launch pad has remained dormant since the last shuttle mission took off July 8, 2011, and SpaceX signed a 20-year lease to take over the facility as a commercially-operated launch complex in 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really awesome to see 39A roar back to life for the first time since the shuttle era, and it was extremely special that this first launch off of 39A was a Dragon mission for NASA heading to the space station,\u201d said Jessica Jensen, a Dragon mission manager who spoke with reporters after Sunday\u2019s launch.<\/p>\n

Credit: Walter Scriptunas II \/ Scriptunas Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA decided it no longer needed pad 39A after the shuttle\u2019s retirement. Nearby launch pad 39B, previously built for Apollo and shuttle flights, will be home to NASA\u2019s Space Launch System, a government-owned heavy-lift rocket that will launch astronaut crews on deep space expeditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis pad would have just sat here and rusted away in the salt air had we not had the use agreement with SpaceX to continue to enable commercial operations for our nation,\u201d said Bob Cabana, director of the Kennedy Space Center.<\/p>\n

The concrete foundation of pad 39A dates back to the Apollo era of the 1960s, while the 347-foot-tall (106-meter) fixed service structure and lightning tower were emplaced before the first shuttle launch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives me a little bit of chills when I walk out there and see stuff that\u2019s left over from Apollo,\u201d said Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX\u2019s vice president of flight reliability.<\/p>\n

Since SpaceX took over, changes to pad 39A have included the construction of the new rocket hangar outside the south gate to the facility, where space shuttles and Saturn 5 moon rockets arrived on top of tracked crawler-transporters after rollout from the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building.<\/p>\n

The hangar can accommodate five Falcon 9 rocket cores at a time, according to SpaceX.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve taken good care of this pad during the refurbishment and the rebuild,\u201d said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX\u2019s president, in remarks to reporters at the launch site Friday. \u201cWe saved precious things that needed to be saved. We\u2019ve upgraded things to make them usable in the contemporary era. It\u2019s hard to express how excited I am to be here, just two-and-a-half years after we got the lease.\u201d<\/p>\n

SpaceX sped the pad to completion after a rocket explosion damaged the company\u2019s other Cape Canaveral launch facility \u2014 Complex 40 a few miles to the south \u2014 and grounded Falcon 9 flights until the booster returned to service last month in a mission from California.<\/p>\n

Other additions at the pad include the installation of RP-1 kerosene fuel tanks and the construction of the massive transporter-erector, which is sized to accommodate SpaceX\u2019s powerful triple-body Falcon Heavy rocket when it debuts later this year.<\/p>\n

An access arm to allow astronauts to board SpaceX\u2019s Crew Dragon capsule, a human-rated ship in development to launch people as soon as next year, will be added to pad 39A in the coming months.<\/p>\n

SpaceX tested many of the launch pad\u2019s new parts Feb. 12 during a countdown rehearsal in which the Falcon 9 rocket was fueled before a hold-down engine firing.<\/p>\n

Engineers returned the two-stage launcher to SpaceX\u2019s hangar, added the Dragon spacecraft, then rolled the fully-assembled vehicle back to the pad Thursday for further tests and the loading of final cargo.<\/p>\n

But some features of the launch pad \u2014 like the quick partial retraction of the transporter-erector \u201cstrongback\u201d umbilical tower at liftoff \u2014 were not been exercised until Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a huge deal for us,\u201d Jensen said. \u201cWe completely modernized the way the pad is built, so yeah, it\u2019s super exciting, and you\u2019re always a little bit nervous. We\u2019ve run tons of tests to ensure that the hold-downs released properly, and the strongback throws back in a different way than it used to at pad 40.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had tons of ground tests, but we\u2019ve never mated an actual rocket with a payload on top for that,\u201d she added. \u201cSo to watch it happen for the first time was just amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mission\u2019s takeoff was delayed from Saturday after SpaceX managers ordered a last-minute abort to investigate unexpected readings from the Falcon 9 upper stage engine\u2019s backup steering mechanism.<\/p>\n

Ground crews lowered the rocket at pad 39A overnight to replace parts of a redundant actuator on the second stage\u2019s Merlin engine thrust vector control system, which directs the powerplant\u2019s thrust to point the launcher in the right direction.<\/p>\n

The rocket was raised upright again around six hours before launch, and the SpaceX launch team, working from a control center around 13 miles (21 kilometers) to the south, oversaw filling of the Falcon 9 with super-chilled, densified kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants in the final hour of the countdown.<\/p>\n

Scattered rain showers around the Kennedy Space Center threatened to hold up the launch, but all weather criteria toggled \u201cgreen\u201d in time for the day\u2019s instantaneous launch opportunity.<\/p>\n