As reported by NBC News: SpaceX will take over a mothballed
rocket launch site in Florida to develop landing pads for its Falcon
family of rockets, the U.S. Air Force said Tuesday. A draft
environmental assessment showed that the California-based company plans
to build the pads at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex
13, which was used for 51 Atlas and Agena rockets between 1958 and 1978.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The assessment was
prepared for the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees
commercial space launches and landings in the United States, "This is a
classic combination of a highly successful launch past morphing into an
equally promising future," Brig. Gen. Nina Armagno, commander of the Air
Force's 45th Space Wing, said in a statement.
SpaceX currently flies
its Falcon 9 rockets from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch
Complex 40, and the company is in the process of taking over Launch
Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, located just north of the
Air Force facility. It also has a launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force
Base in California, and last month signed a similar deal to take over a second site there for a Falcon Heavy landing pad.
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