NASA Shuttle launch pad 39A up for lease

Nearly two years after space shuttle Atlantis blasted off for the last time, NASA has put out a "For Lease" notice for one of its shuttle launch pads in Florida.

In a notice posted on its procurement website, the U.S. space agency said it was looking for one or more companies to take over operations and maintenance of Launch Complex 39A.

The facility is one of two launch pads at the Kennedy Space Center built in the 1960s to support the Apollo moon program. Both were later modified for the space shuttles, which began flying in 1981.

NASA intends to refurbish Complex 39B for its heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket and Orion deep-space crew capsule, designed to carry astronauts to destinations beyond the International Space Station, a $100 billion research complex that flies about 250 miles above Earth.

Pad 39A, however, is among the hundreds of shuttle-era facilities that NASA no longer needs.

Robert Cabana

"We're on track for significant commercial operations here at the Cape," Kennedy Space Center Director Robert Cabana said last week at a National Space Club Florida meeting in Cape Canaveral.

NASA's Florida spaceport has demolished or transferred to commercial users more than 150 shuttle facilities, reducing its footprint by 1 million square feet (93,000 square meters), Cabana said.

Among the companies that have expressed interest in the pad are privately owned Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, which leases a launch pad at the adjacent Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for its Falcon 9 rockets.

SpaceX has a second launch site in California and is shopping for at least one more U.S. site to accommodate its burgeoning manifest.

NASA is looking to have a five-year or longer lease on the property by October 1.

NASA Orion Vehicle: The Main Parachutes from the CPAS

One of NASA Orion’s main parachutes from the Capsule Parachute Assembly System, or CPAS, is lowered into the water at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL) at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The Orion CPAS team joined the Exploration Flight Test 1 recovery team and representatives of the U.S. Navy to test recovery procedures for the Orion parachutes.

The NBL is 202 feet in length, 102 feet in width, and 40 feet in depth (20 feet above ground level and 20 ft below) and holds 6.2 million gallons of water.

In addition to the current parachute recovery test the facility has been used by the Orion program to test the Crew Module Uprighting system on a full size Orion mockup known as PORT.

Image Credit: NASA/James Blair

NASA - A Summer of Records for J-2X Engine Testing

NASA is setting new records while testing the J-2X powerpack at the Stennis Space Center.

Image Credit: NASA/SSC

The first time was June 8, when engineers went the distance and set the Test Complex A record with a 1,150-second firing of the developmental powerpack assembly.

On July 24, engineers surpassed that record with a 1,350-second test of the engine component on the A-1 Test Stand at Stennis.

The powerpack is a system of components on the top portion of the J-2X engine. On the complete J-2X engine, the powerpack feeds the thrust chamber, which produces the engine fire and thrust.

The advantage of testing the powerpack without the thrust chamber is to operate over a wide range of conditions to understand safe limits.

The July 24 test specifically gathered data on performance of the liquid oxygen and fuel pumps during extreme conditions.

The test data provides critical information for continued development of the turbopump for use on the J-2X engine, the first human-rated liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen rocket engine to be developed in four decades.

The J-2X is being built by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne for NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

The J-2X engine will power the upper-stage of a planned two-stage Space Launch System (SLS). The SLS will launch NASA's Orion spacecraft and other payloads, and provide an entirely new capability for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit.

Designed to be safe, affordable and flexible for crew and cargo missions, the SLS will continue America's journey of discovery and exploration to destinations including nearby asteroids, Lagrange points, the moon and ultimately, Mars.