This pad is one of two Florida launch sites leased by SpaceX to prepare and launch its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.
Built in the early 1960s, SLC-40 was used to launch 55 Titan III and Titan IV rockets, including the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, between June 18th, 1965 and April 30th, 2005.
In 2007, SpaceX leased the pad and converted it to launch the original version of Falcon 9. It was upgraded again in 2013 to accommodate the larger, reusable Falcon 9 rocket
An accident on September 1st, 2016 destroyed the pad when a Falcon 9 blew up during a fueling and engine test.
The pad was completely rebuilt in just 10 months from mid-February to late-November 2017 and re-entered service with the December 15th, 2017 launch of a cargo Dragon capsule to the International Space Station.
Under SpaceX, the pad has seen many significant payloads launched from its grounds, including:
- the first all-commercial ship (Dragon) to reach the International Space Station,
- the DSCOVR mission for NASA,
- the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) for NASA and MIT,
- the first Turkmenistan satellite,
- the classified Zuma mission for Northrop Grumman and the U.S. government,
- the first GPS-III satellite, and
- the Beresheet lunar lander for Israel.
Cape Canaveral
SLC-40 is located on Cape Canaveral, the primary launch center for the United States.
The Cape has four currently-active launch pads for the Atlas V, Delta IV Heavy, Falcon 9, and Minotaur rockets.
Located on Florida’s east coast, Cape Canaveral provides a wide range of access to space for missions to the Space Station, Geostationary Earth Orbit, the Moon, inter-planetary targets, polar trajectories, and more.
The Cape is ideally suited for reaching all locations in space the U.S. needs access to while launching exclusively out over the open Atlantic Ocean so as not to endanger anyone on the ground.
NASA's Kennedy Space Center, which occupies neighboring Merritt Island, and Cape Canaveral are often confused with each other or referred to as a single place. They are in fact separate government installations and launch sites.
Cape Canaveral has hosted numerous history-making rocket launches:
- first U.S. Earth satellite in 1958,
- first U.S. astronaut in 1961,
- first U.S. astronaut in orbit in 1962,
- first two-person U.S. spacecraft 1965, and
- first U.S. uncrewed lunar landing in 1966
Image: Jenny Hautmann for Supercluster