At Florida Spaceports, Commercial Operators Prepare To Move In

摘要

Privately owned U.S. space companies are preparing to move into high-value launch support facilities in Florida, partially filling a vacuum left by the end of the space shuttle program and the retiring of the Delta 2 expendable rocket. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) already has confirmed that it will use money from the state of Florida to expand its presence at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Meanwhile, an announcement is expected in the coming weeks from NASA regarding bids from industry to take over shuttle facilities at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). SpaceX got about $7 million from Florida "to basically take over this old Delta 2 processing hangar and upgrade it so that we can process Falcon 9s there," Bobby Block, a spokesman for Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX, said Aug. 12. The facility, formerly known as Hanger AO, has been rechristened "Hanger X" by SpaceX.