Blue Origin Competing With SpaceX For Launch Rights At The Iconic Facility

Launch Complex 39A is something of a special place for space enthusiasts. Built for the Apollo program, astronauts were launched to the Moon from Pad 39A, which was later modified to support the Shuttle program. The first and last shuttle flights originated on Pad 39A (pictured in foreground).

Now, NASA has declared it to be surplus, and it is being coveted by two American billionaires who want to continue the facility’s legacy of spaceflight origination.

Those billionaires are Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, and Jeff Bezos, the founder of Blue Origin. While SpaceX has already successfully launched unmanned spacecraft to the International Space Station, Blue Origin has been quietly working on both sub-orbital and orbital spacecraft that it hopes will eventually be used both for space tourism, and conducting research for manned transport to ISS and beyond.

NASA is keeping launch complex 39B for its SLS program, but the agency wants to turn over 39A to a private company for its operation and maintenance. They hope to have a contract in place by October. NBC News reports that both Bezos and Musk would like to have that contract so that they will not have to build an orbital launch pad from scratch. SpaceX has been search for a place to build such a facility for two years, but has not been able to reach a deal. Among the challenges are infrastructure for the spacecraft and range clearances for orbital launches ... commodities that complex 39A already has.

Blue Origin president Rob Meyerson said that the company would continue to use land owned by Bezos in Texas that has been transformed into a spaceport for its suborbital operations, but for the company's orbital ambitions, it is very interested in the existing Florida facility.

SpaceX says it hopes to begin flying manned missions aboard its Dragon spacecraft boosted by a Falcon 9 rocket in 2015. Blue Origin says it hopes commercial operations, including flights to ISS, could be up and running by 2018, though not necessarily manned missions.

(Launch Complex 39A image from file)

FMI: www.blueorigin.com, www.spacex.com