Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 20
 SLC-20 in September 1964, during the inaugural launch of the Titan IIIA | |||||||||||
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| Launch site | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station | ||||||||||
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| Location | 28°30′44″N 80°33′24″W / 28.5122°N 80.5567°W | ||||||||||
| Short name | SLC-20 | ||||||||||
| Operator | United States Space Force (owner) Firefly Aerospace (tenent) | ||||||||||
| Total launches | 27 | ||||||||||
| Launch pad(s) | One | ||||||||||
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Space Launch Complex 20 (SLC-20), is a launch site at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. SLC-20 is the northernmost launchpad in Missile Row, located at the northern terminus of ICBM Road between Launch Complex 19 and Launch Complex 34.
Originally designated as Launch Complex 20 (LC-20) by the United States Air Force, SLC-20 was historically built for launching the HGM-25A Titan I in ICBM tests, and subsequently saw use by the Titan IIIA and various sounding rockets. The pad is currently leased to Firefly Aerospace for future use by their Firefly Alpha and MLV launch vehicles.
History
[edit]The facility was constructed by the United States Air Force in the late 1950s for the Titan I missile program, alongside LC-19, LC-16, and LC-15 to the south. The pad saw use in this initial configuration in 1960 and 1961, being the site of 16 Titan I launches within that period. After a couple years of inactivity with the Titan I's replacement by the LGM-25C Titan II, SLC-20 was modified in 1964 as part pf the Titan III program, and was used to launch the Titan IIIA and its Transtage third stage. In 1964 and 1965, the launch site was used four times by the Titan IIIA,[1] with three of them being successful. To date, these launches are the only ones out of SLC-20 to reach low Earth orbit.
Following being mothballed for two decades, SLC-20 saw life with further modications in the late 1980s for the Starbird launch vehicles[2] associated with the shuttle Starlab mission.[3] From 1990 to 1994, the facility saw five launches, all of them being sounding rockets. SLC-20 was deactivated in 1996.
In 1999, the site was re-activated to support new launch facilities under the direction of Space Florida for commercial launches. The re-activation included upgrades to Launch Pad A and the construction of a new building along the perimeter road, northeast of the blockhouse.[4] The next year, the pad hosted the launch of two Super Loki sounding rockets.
In 2006, the site was being used by NASA's Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), a research and development project to provide infrastructure to test, demonstrate and qualify new spaceport technologies. The site was shared with the Florida Air National Guard.[5]
In February 2019, Space Florida leased the site to Firefly Aerospace so that they could launch their Alpha and MLV launch vehicles from the Space Coast's Eastern Range on prograde launch azimuths, being renamed SLC-20 to follow similar rebrandings of pads such as SLC-40 and SLC-41. To support upcoming operations at Cape Canaveral, Firefly plans to develop both manufacturing facilities at a nearby Space Florida business park as well as the launch site. This compliments a similar lease arrangement made with the military for SLC-2W at Vandenberg Space Force Base as a launch site used for polar orbital trajectories.[6][7] As SLC-2W had a much more active history of being used as a launch pad (being the Western Range site of the Delta II), Firefly opted to prioritize work on there over SLC-20, seeing the maiden flight of the Alpha in September 2021.
In 2024 Firefly indicated they were maintaining their lease at SLC-20 while prioritizing Wallops Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport as their first East Coast launch site,[8] primarily due to their partnership with Northrop Grumman in the development of the Antares 330, also planned to be launched from LP-0A.
Launch statistics
[edit]- Titan I
- Titan IIIA
- Starbird
- Prospector
- Aries (rocket)
- LCLV
- Super Loki
- Firefly Alpha
Notes
[edit]- ^ "STATEMENT OF BASIS SPACE LAUNCH COMPLEX 20" (PDF). PDF. The United States Environmental Protection Agency. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-10-08. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
- ^ "Launch Complex 20". Cape Canaveral Space Force Museum. Retrieved March 18, 2023.
- ^ "The Cape, Chapter 3, Section 9 STARBIRD and RED TIGRESS Operations". Federation of American Scientists. Retrieved March 18, 2023.
- ^ "DRAFT Environmental Assessment for the Reconstitution and Enhancement of Space Launch Complex 20 Multi-User Launch Operations at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Florida" (PDF). September 2020. p. 1-3. Retrieved March 18, 2023.
- ^ "About ATDC". web. NASA. Archived from the original on 2006-12-08. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
- ^ Loren Grush (22 February 2019). "Resurrected Firefly Aerospace will take over a launch site at busy Florida spaceport". The Verge. Retrieved March 18, 2023.
- ^ Berger, Eric (22 February 2019). "Firefly planning a major rocket assembly and launch facility in Florida". Ars Technica.
- ^ "Firefly preparing new launch pads in Virginia, Sweden for Alpha rocket". 12 September 2024.
External links
[edit]- Spaceport Authority Selects Lockheed Martin to Operate Launch Pads
- Complex 20 Live Video Archived 2019-10-19 at the Wayback Machine
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