SpaceX signs deal for landing pad in Florida

The unmanned Falcon 9 rocket launched by SpaceX carrying NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory Satellite sits on launch complex 40 after a scrubbed launch attempt at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida February 8, 2015.

Credit: Reuters/Scott Audette

Space Exploration Technologies 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 on Tuesday.
A draft environmental assessment showed that SpaceX, as the California company is known, plans to build a primary concrete square landing pad measuring 200 by 200 foot (61 by 61 meters) and four round pads measuring 150 feet in diameter 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, used for Titan rocket launches between 1965 and 2005. The Air Force leased the pad to SpaceX in 2007 for its Falcon rockets, and the company is in the process of taking over a mothballed space shuttle launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center, located just north of the Air Force base.
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 for a Falcon landing pad.
SpaceX has been developing technology to re-use its rockets, potentially slashing launch costs.
An initial attempt last month to fly a discarded first-stage motor back to a landing platform in the ocean nearly succeeded, Elon Musk, the SpaceX founder and chief executive, said after the test.
The rocket ran short of hydraulic fluid to maneuver steering fins, and crashed into the platform, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean northeast of the launch site.
The company plans to make a second landing attempt with the discarded first stage motor on Tuesday after sending a U.S. government weather satellite into orbit.
(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Original post found here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/10/us-space-spacex-landingpads-idUSKBN0LE26920150210