Texas Launch Site Groundbreaking Caps Busy Week for SpaceX

SpaceX will break ground for its new launch site near Brownsville, TX on Monday, September 22, 2014.  It will cap quite a busy week-long period for the entrepreneurial space launch company that started with winning a CCtCAP award from NASA and, hopefully, launching a cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) this weekend.

On Tuesday, NASA awarded SpaceX one of two Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCAP) contracts (Boeing got the other).  The $2.6 billion contract is for SpaceX to complete development of its Dragon V2 spacecraft for taking astronauts to and from the ISS, fly a demonstration mission, and up to six missions thereafter.  NASA’s goal is to have SpaceX and/or Boeing commercial crew vehicles operational by 2017.  Boeing received a $4.2 billion award.

Right now, SpaceX is waiting for the weather to cooperate at Cape Canaveral, FL for the launch of its fourth operational “commercial cargo” to the ISS, Commercial Resupply Services (CRS)-4.  The SpaceX CRS-4 cargo mission was supposed to launch early this morning, but was postponed to early tomorrow morning (September 21, 1:52 am ET) because of bad weather.  The forecast is only 40 percent favorable for launch tomorrow morning.   If it is delayed again, the next opportunity is on September 23.

Both the commercial crew and commercial cargo programs are essentially public-private partnerships where NASA and the private sector each provide funding for development (instead of the government providing all of the funds), with the government serving as a market for the resulting services.  SpaceX competes with Orbital Sciences Corporation for the commercial cargo launches.  Its competition for commercial crew will be Boeing and perhaps other companies that are willing to proceed without government funds in the hope that the market for taking people to and from space is larger than just NASA.

Meanwhile on September 22, SpaceX will break ground near Boca Chica Beach, TX, close to Brownsville, for an orbital launch facility which it hopes will be completed by 2016.  The FAA approved SpaceX’s application to conduct launches from the site in July.  The license allows up to 12 commercial launch operations per year of the Falcon 9 and prospective SpaceX rockets including Falcon Heavy and “a variety of reusable suborbital vehicles.” The launch site is on 68.9 acres of land just three miles north of the U.S./Mexico border.   Space launches from there can travel out over the Gulf of Mexico, avoiding overflight of land during the early stages of launch just like the other U.S. orbital sites in Virginia (Wallops Island), Florida (Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and NASA’s adjacent Kennedy Space Center), California (Vandenberg Air Force Base) and Alaska (Kodiak).  By having its own launch site, SpaceX will have more flexibility in launch dates by not having to coordinate with other users.  SpaceX currently launches from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg.  It will continue to use those facilities when necessary and its commercial crew flights will launch from Pad 39A at KSC, which SpaceX is leasing from NASA.

Note:  SpaceX CRS-4 was successfully launched at 1:52 am EDT, September 21, 2014.