SpaceX, Air Force sign deal for landing pad at Cape
SpaceX and the Air Force have reached an agreement to use a former Atlas launch pad on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station as a landing site for returning Falcon rocket boosters.
"The way we see it, this is a classic combination of a highly successful launch past morphing into an equally promising future," Brig. Gen. Nina Armagno, commander of the 45th Space Wing, said in a statement........
Located on "Missile Row," Launch Complex 13 first supported a test of an Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile in 1958, and later launches of unmanned planetary probes for NASA and classified Air Force missions. It was deactivated in 1978 after more than 50 launches and designated part of a National Historic Landmark, according to Air Force records.
"For decades, we have been refining our procedures for getting successful launches skyward here on the Eastern Range. Now we're looking at processes on how to bring first-stage rockets back to earth at the first landing pad at the Cape," Armagno said. "We live in exciting times here on the Space Coast."