MELBOURNE, Fla. — SpaceX hopes to launch a Falcon 9 rocket and cargo craft Saturday morning from the same Kennedy Space Center pad that was used to send men to the moon nearly 50 years ago.
The unmanned launch of International Space Station supplies opens a new commercial chapter at the historic NASA launch site that last hosted a mission 5½ years ago, when NASA launched Atlantis on the final flight of the shuttle program.
SpaceX’s upcoming launch “is extraordinary for the space industry, it’s extraordinary for SpaceX, and I think it’s great for the United States as well,” said Gwynne Shotwell, the company’s president and chief operating officer, standing in front of a Falcon 9 rocket at KSC’s pad 39A on Friday afternoon.
“It’s a historic pad,” said Shotwell. “It’s an extra-special launch (Saturday) for sure.”
SpaceX on Friday was investigating a small leak in the Falcon 9 rocket’s upper stage helium system, and said it would not know until late if the issue might affect Saturday’s 10:01 a.m. ET launch attempt.
Shotwell expected the countdown to proceed but cautioned that the company’s first launch from a new pad could prove challenging.
If the Falcon 9 does take flight, the mission quickly hopes to achieve another first.
Eight minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s first stage booster will flip around and fly back to Cape Canaveral for landing — the first time that’s been attempted in daylight, following two successful nighttime landings at “Landing Zone 1.”
Anyone in the vicinity can expect to hear loud sonic booms as the booster touches down on landing legs miles south of the launch site.
Thick clouds are a potential weather concern, but forecasters predict a 70% chance of favorable conditions for the launch.
The resupply mission continues SpaceX’s rebound from a Falcon 9 rocket’s spectacular explosion Sept. 1 during a test at the company’s primary Florida pad to date, Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
SpaceX adjusted the way it loads helium pressure tanks that buckled and breached during the September explosion. Engineers said that problem was unrelated to the leak being studied Friday.
On Jan. 14, Space returned the Falcon 9 to flight with a successful launch of commercial satellites from California, but most of the company’s missions fly from Florida.
Those include supply runs to the six-person International Space Station crew, which SpaceX has not flown since last July. This mission is hauling up roughly 5,500 pounds of food, equipment and science experiments.
The first rocket to rumble from Kennedy's pad 39A was a mighty Saturn V, flying the unmanned Apollo 4 test flight on Nov. 9, 1967.
NASA modified the pad to support shuttle missions that began in 1981, adding the fixed and mobile service towers still standing today.
But after Atlantis blasted off on July 8, 2011, NASA no longer needed the pad.
In 2014, KSC awarded SpaceX the rights to use pad 39A for 20 years, ensuring that it would not be abandoned.
“This pad would have just sat here and rusted away in the salt air,” said KSC Director Bob Cabana, who launched from the pad four times as a shuttle astronaut. “What an awesome use of a great American asset.”
SpaceX plans to repurpose the pad for launches of its heavy-lift Falcon Heavy rocket, which is expected to debut this year, and of astronauts to the ISS, planned next year.
After the September explosion severely damaged Complex 40, having pad 39A close to flight-ready was “enormously helpful” in allowing SpaceX to resume Florida launches more quickly, Shotwell said.
For many KSC employees SpaceX’s launch is symbolic of the center’s transformation since the shuttle program, whose retirement resulted in layoffs of roughly 7,000 local contractors.
“This will be our first launch since the end of the shuttle program,” said Tom Engler, head of the KSC office responsible for commercial partnerships. “So it’s significant from that perspective, and from the public’s perspective, it’s that first true visual indicator that KSC is still a viable, vibrant, active community that is doing things differently and better than we’ve ever done it before.”
At neighboring launch pad 39B, Regina Spellman is overseeing renovations to prepare that site for a first launch of NASA’s new Space Launch System rocket, targeted for late 2018.
Looking south at pad 39A this week, she said she and others considered SpaceX’s launch a big deal.
“You definitely get that sense throughout Kennedy,” said Spellman. “People are so tied to the history here and these pads, it’s like bringing them to life again, and I think everybody is really excited to see that.”
Follow James Dean on Twitterz; @flatoday_jdean
