Launch Complex 36 (LC-36)—formerly known as Space Launch Complex 36 (SLC-36) from 1997 to 2010—is a launch complex at

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the station ...

Brevard County, Florida Brevard County ( ) is a county located in the east central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 606,612, making it the 10th-most populated county in Florida. The official county seat is located in Ti ...

. It was used for

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...

launches by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

and the

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...

from 1962 until 2005.

Blue Origin Blue Origin, LLC is an American private spaceflight, privately funded aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in Kent, Washington. Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Am ...

has leased the launch site since 2015 in order to build a new launch site for launching the company's orbital rockets. Orbital launches are expected to begin from LC-36 no earlier than Q4 2022, and the first launch vehicle slated to launch there is

New Glenn New Glenn is a heavy-lift orbital launch vehicle in development by Blue Origin. Named after NASA astronaut John Glenn, design work on the vehicle began in 2012. Illustrations of the vehicle, and the high-level specifications, were initial ...

, under development by Blue Origin since 2012. As of 2019, LC-36 is under major construction, including for a large

launch pad A launch pad is an above-ground facility from which a rocket-powered missile or space vehicle is vertically launched. The term ''launch pad'' can be used to describe just the central launch platform (mobile launcher platform), or the entire ...

for the launch vehicle with nearby Horizontal Integration Facility, lightning tower, water tower, and propellant tank farm for

liquid methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Eart ...

and

liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen. It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an applica ...

. Historically, the complex consisted of two launch pads, SLC-36A and SLC-36B, and was the launch site for the

Pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land. In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and de ...

Surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

, and

Mariner A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. The profession of the s ...

probes in the 1960s and 1970s. There were a total of 145 launches from LC 36 during the period that the

US government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...

operated the launch complex in the first five decades of spaceflight. The Atlas rockets launched from Complex 36 were subsequently superseded by the

Atlas V Atlas V is an expendable launch system and the fifth major version in the Atlas (rocket family), Atlas launch vehicle family. It was originally designed by Lockheed Martin, now being operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture be ...

launch vehicle which launches from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral beginning in 2002.

History

LC-36 was originally constructed by the

in the early 1960s in order to launch the

Atlas-Centaur The Atlas-Centaur was a United States expendable launch vehicle derived from the SM-65 Atlas D missile. Launches were conducted from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida. Early development Convair, ...

rocket, with first launch in May 1962. LC-36A was the scene of the biggest on-pad explosion in Cape history when Atlas-Centaur AC-5 fell back onto the pad on March 2, 1965. The accident spurred NASA to complete work on LC-36B which had been abandoned when it was 90% finished. LC-36B was built near LC-36A "due to the Atlas-Centaur’s increasing flight rate – and low reliability early on." The pad was modified during the late 1980s to be able to launch the

Atlas I The Atlas I was a US expendable launch system manufactured by General Dynamics in the 1990s to launch a variety of satellites. In June 1987, General Dynamics committed $100M to acquire long-lead procurement items to support build of 18 vehicles f ...

, with first launch occurring in July 1990, and was subsequently modified two additional times during the 1990s to launch the

Atlas II Atlas II was a member of the Atlas family of launch vehicles, which evolved from the successful Atlas missile program of the 1950s. The Atlas II was a direct evolution of the Atlas I, featuring longer first stage tanks, higher-performing engines ...

and Atlas III launch vehicles. Atlas III made its sixth and final launch from LC-36 in 2005. There were a total of 68 and 77 launches from pads 36A and 36B, respectively, while the US government operated the launch complex in the first five decades of spaceflight.

Interregnum

The pad was unused from mid-2005 through 2015. The legacy Atlas-Centaur umbilical towers of both pads were demolished in 2006. The mobile service towers were both demolished in controlled explosions on June 16, 2007. Tower B was demolished at 13:59

GMT Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being calculated from noon; as a cons ...

(09:59 EDT) and tower A followed twelve minutes later at 14:11 (10:11 EDT). In 2008, ''

Aviation Week ''Aviation Week & Space Technology'', often abbreviated ''Aviation Week'' or ''AW&ST'', is the flagship magazine of the Aviation Week Network. The weekly magazine is available in print and online, reporting on the aerospace, defense and aviati ...

'' magazine reported that the

committed to lease Launch Complex 36 to

Space Florida Space Florida is the aerospace economic development agency of the State of Florida. The agency was created by consolidating three existing state space entities into a single new organization via the Space Florida Act, enacted in May 2006 by the ...

for future use by the

Athena III Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of va ...

launch system, but that program never moved forward. In March 2010, the USAF 45th Space Wing issued real property licenses to Space Florida for Space Launch Complexes 36 and 46 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Moon Express Moon Express (MoonEx; vehicle model prefix: MX) is an American privately held early-stage company formed in 2010 by a group of Silicon Valley and space entrepreneurs. It had the goal of winning the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize, and of ultimatel ...

leased the pad in February 2015 from Space Florida as a development and test site for its commercial lunar operations and its lunar lander

flight test Flight testing is a branch of aeronautical engineering that develops specialist equipment required for testing aircraft behaviour and systems. Instrumentation systems are developed using proprietary transducers and data acquisition systems. D ...

vehicles. In 2015,

signed a long-term lease of launch site from

for launching Blue's orbital rockets, after Space Florida had previously leased the facility from the USAF in 2010 in order to facilitate

commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

use of the land and facilities since the Air Force no longer required use of the launch complex. Moon Express and Blue Origin shared LC-36, delineated into LC-36A and LC-36B respectively, until Moon Express announced its relocation to Launch Complexes 17 and 18 in 2016, allowing Blue Origin full use of the LC-36 facility. In early 2016, Blue intended to begin orbital launches by 2020, as of 2019 they are expected to begin from LC-36 no earlier than 2023.

Blue Origin

On September 15, 2015,

announced it would use Launch Complex 36 for launches of its

orbital launch vehicle A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pads, supported by a launch control center and syste ...

later in the decade. Blue had the lease in place for Launch Complex 36 by late 2015 from the

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

space agency,

, and will manufacture their new

BE-4 The Blue Engine 4 or BE-4 is an oxygen-rich liquefied-methane-fueled staged-combustion rocket engine under development by Blue Origin. The BE-4 is being developed with private and public funding. The engine has been designed to produce of thr ...

-powered orbital launch vehicle at the nearby

Exploration Park Exploration Park is a partnership formed in 2011 between NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Space Florida. There are 299 Acres on KSC property, but outside the NASA badge controlled area. As of March 2016, companies have the opportunity to lea ...

, also a part of the Space Florida land complex. By October 2015, the pad design and configuration was not yet publicly known. Blue broke ground for the facility to initiate construction activity on the site in June 2016. By March 2016, the first launch of the Blue orbital launch vehicle

was estimated to be no earlier than 2020 and that target date had not changed by the time high-level specifications for the new launcher were unveiled in September 2016, nor by the time construction of the launch site was well underway in September 2018. ''New Glenn'' will be a very large -diameter vehicle. The first stage will be powered by seven

methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Eart ...

oxygen Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as wel ...

engines producing total

thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that syst ...

at launch. The first stage will be reusable and is designed to land vertically. Blue has also leased the adjacent land—formerly known as

LC-11 Launch Complex 11 (LC-11) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, is a launch complex used by Atlas missiles between 1958 and 1964. It is the southernmost of the launch pads known as Missile Row. When it was built, it, along with comple ...

—to use as a ground-based rocket engine test facility. Construction of the new launch complex and engine test facility was still underway in September 2018. Although Blue has been publicly quiet about the status of the launch complex construction, high-resolution aerial photography released after

Hurricane Dorian Hurricane Dorian was an extremely powerful and catastrophic Category 5 Atlantic hurricane, which became the most intense tropical cyclone on record to strike the Bahamas, and tied for strongest landfall in the Atlantic basin. It is also reg ...

in September 2019 showed that facility foundation work is in place—including for the horizontal integration facility, the launch service structure, lightning tower, and water tower—and above-ground steel construction has commenced. The

propellant A propellant (or propellent) is a mass that is expelled or expanded in such a way as to create a thrust or other motive force in accordance with Newton's third law of motion, and "propel" a vehicle, projectile, or fluid payload. In vehicles, the e ...

tank farm is in the process of being installed.

Gallery

File:Atlas III Centaur.jpg, An Atlas III launches from SLC-36B File:LC-36A Demolition.jpg, The MSS of Space Launch Complex 36A falls to the ground after critical supports are destroyed in a controlled explosion.

References

{{Blue Origin Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Launch complexes of the United States Space Force Rocket launch sites in the United States 1962 establishments in Florida

History

Interregnum

Blue Origin

Gallery

See also

References