Blue Origin · SpaceX · Artemis Program · Ars Technica
Kennedy Space Center not ready for era of super heavy rockets
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NASA’s infrastructure at Kennedy Space Center, the crown jewel of US spaceports, is aging and approaching its limit due to increased demand from private companies, including SpaceX and Blue Origin, a new report finds.
Key facts
- The system cannot simultaneously support launches … of Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch vehicle at Space Launch Complex 36 and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle at Space Launch
- Finally, NASA has built a 10-acre site, Launch Complex 48, that it may lease to small launch vehicle companies
- Despite aging infrastructure, since 2021, the budgets NASA uses to pay for construction projects and perform maintenance on launch-related infrastructure have decreased between 11 and 47 percent
- The solution for this is to construct a new gaseous nitrogen system to supplement the existing capacity, but the $25 million project is currently unfunded
Summary
“NASA’s launch infrastructure is vital to providing the agency, other government agencies, and commercial partners access to space for their most complex and expensive missions,” states the report, published by the NASA Office of Inspector General. The report covers NASA’s launch facilities at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. NASA only has a handful of launch pads at Kennedy. The space agency’s neighbor to the south, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, has many more pads.