Renovations to SpaceX’s most used launch pad in Florida will be commissioned on Thursday with the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon cargo ship bound for the International Space Station.
SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon spacecraft departed from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Thursday at 4:55 p.m. EDT (20:55 UTC). It is scheduled to be launched. The mission, known as CRS-30, is SpaceX’s 30th resupply mission to the space station since 2012.
The automated Dragon supply ship will take off aboard a Falcon 9 rocket and spend a month at the International Space Station, where it will transport more than 6,000 pounds of hardware, fresh food and laboratories to seven people. is. -Crew of people.
Over the past few months, SpaceX has equipped its launch pad with the necessary equipment to support the launch of human spaceflight missions on its Crew Dragon spacecraft. The Cargo Dragon capsule is the same size and shape as SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, but instead of seats and cockpit displays, it’s filled with cargo racks and storage platforms.
This week, SpaceX engineers used SLC-40’s new launch tower and crew access arm to load critical experiments and supplies into the Cargo Dragon capsule atop the Falcon 9 rocket.
“CRS-30 will be the first Dragon to launch from Pad 40 since we installed a brand new crew tower,” said Sarah Walker, SpaceX Dragon mission management director.
Build new functionality
Since last year, construction crews at Cape Canaveral have built part of a more than 200-foot-tall metal lattice tower at SLC-40, right next to the starting blocks of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Previously, SLC-40 was based on a “clean pad” architecture, with no structures for servicing or accessing the Falcon 9 rocket while it was mounted vertically on the pad.
In November, the contractor raised the crew access arm to its attachment point near the top of the tower. This passageway will allow astronauts to crawl into the Crew Dragon spacecraft during the launch countdown. It also provides access to the Cargo His Dragon spacecraft’s hatch for final cargo loading.
Earlier this year, SpaceX tested an escape chute on SLC-40 that would allow astronauts and ground personnel to quickly escape from the airfield in the event of an emergency. This chute is similar in function to the slide wire basket used for decades on the LC-39A, but instead of climbing into the basket from the top of the tower, personnel escaping from a pad emergency can slide down the chute. I carried it several hundred feet from the tower. rocket.
SpaceX employees tested a pad escape chute on SLC-40 last month. Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operations officer, was on board to exit the chute. “The safety of our astronauts and employees is SpaceX’s top priority, which is why I had to personally test the new slides,” she posted on X, along with a winking emoji.
Team tests new emergency chute from Pad 40 crew tower in Florida pic.twitter.com/rWVj7zaHp0
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 19, 2024
“The team took off-the-shelf technology and applied it to the crew tower,” said Kiko Donchev, SpaceX’s vice president of launch. I wrote to X. “You’re trained in the same way you’re trained to use an airplane emergency exit door. Deploying the slide requires just a few quick physical movements and anyone can do it effectively.”
Simplifying safety systems will be important as more people travel to space, especially on large vehicles like SpaceX’s Starship.
“This system will help scale to larger towers and spacecraft (think 100 people on a Starship),” Donchev wrote.
SpaceX and its contractors completed all of this work with Falcon 9s launching SLC-40s every few days on Starlink satellites and other missions.
For the past four years, all SpaceX crew and cargo launches to the space station have departed from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, a few miles upstream from the coast from SLC-40. In 2018 and 2019, SpaceX equipped the LC-39A for Cargo Dragon and Crew Dragon missions ahead of the company’s first human spaceflight mission in 2020.
Walker said the new infrastructure added on the SLC-40 is “nearly functionally identical” to the LC-39A’s crew mission equipment. The main differences are the pad’s means of escape (a chute instead of a sliding wire basket) and the more robust elevator in the SLC-40’s tower.
Previously, SpaceX used both the SLC-40 and LC-39A to launch its now-retired first-generation Dragon cargo capsule, but before SpaceX lifted the rocket vertically for launch. The final supplies were being loaded. Similar to regular satellite launches on Falcon 9, both pads could potentially support first-generation Dragon cargo transport missions.
“This new, state-of-the-art crew tower required for human spaceflight missions also greatly improves late cargo loading,” Walker said. – Important NASA science has been incorporated into the Flying Dragon spacecraft. ”
SpaceX has significantly increased the pace of launches since building the LC-39A for the Dragon mission. The company plans to launch about 150 Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy aircraft this year. If you’re flying a rocket every two or three days, it’s inevitable that two missions will compete for the same launch slot. Most recently, it happened in February. At the time, NASA’s crew mission was ready for launch from LC-39A, about the same time as the narrow launch window for Intuitive Machines’ first commercial lunar lander. Both had to be removed from the LC-39A.
“Historically, Pad 40 has been kind of our high-rate pad. We’ve been able to reduce our time to launch to just two to three days,” Walker said. .
Walker said the LC-39A is being used primarily for Dragon crew and cargo flights, Falcon Heavy missions, and less frequently for “unique and complex” missions such as the Intuitive Machines lander.
