• Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida is accustomed to getting makeovers. • It got another one Wednesday with the removal of the Crew Access Arm used by astronauts to board their rides to space. • Construction workers first carved the footprint for the launch pad from the Florida wetlands more than 60 years ago. • NASA used the site to launch Saturn V rockets dispatching astronauts to the Moon, then converted the pad for the Space Shuttle program. • The last shuttle flight lifted off from Pad 39A in 2011, and the agency leased the site to SpaceX for use as the departure point for the company’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. • SpaceX started launching from Pad 39A in 2017, then installed a new Crew Access Arm on the pad’s tower the following year, replacing the aging shuttle-era arm that connected to the hatches of NASA’s orbiters.
Article Summaries:
- SpaceX has removed the Crew Access Arm from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, a move that marks the pad’s latest upgrade as the company prepares for Starship launches. The arm, installed in 2018 to support Crew Dragon flights, had been used by astronauts to board spacecraft from a 200‑foot‑high platform. With the arm dismantled, SpaceX is building a new launch tower for Starship roughly 1,000 feet east of the existing structure, still within the pad’s perimeter. The company plans its first Starship flight from KSC later this year after a series of test flights at its South Texas base.
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